| Recently,along with the rapid development of Chinese OFDI,the phenomenon of export firms transiting to OFDI has been getting increasingly common.However,most studies about Chinese export firms transiting to OFDI has just been the empirical analysis of influential factors till now,few people conduct systematic study on the pathway of transiting to OFDI.Based on the existing studies,this paper constructed a comprehensive analytical framework of export transiting to OFDI to explain systematically how Chinese firms transited to OFDI after analyzing Chinese manufacturing firms' data from the perspective of heterogeneous firms.The overall research idea of this paper was that constructing a comprehensive framework of heterogeneous firms' transition from export to OFDI to explain firms'choice of export first to test its profitability because of the uncertainty in the overseas market.Export firms accumulated enough experiential knowledge.Under the condition that its profitability went beyond the threshold of transiting,firms would transited to OFDI in order to get higher profit.Based on the theoretical analysis,the paper made detailed empirical analyses on how Chinese firms transited from export to OFDI.On the one hand,the paper tried to explore the relations between Chinese firms'export increasing their productivity and transiting to OFDI,and found that export increased firms' productivity,enabling them to transit,thus increased the probability of transiting to OFDI.On the other hand,the paper explored how the combined action of export and uncertainty promote Chinese firms transiting to OFDI.The paper found that though the marginal effects of export to transiting to OFDI getting lower along with the export development,export decreased the perceptible uncertainty,alleviating the risks during the transition,thus promoted firms transiting to OFDI.Based on the overall idea,the main contents and conclusions were as follows.Firstly,under the condition of single market,the paper set up a two-stage dynamic model.At stage 2,the paper calculated the profits of export and OFDI under the conditions that firms exported or OFDI at stage 1,and found that firms might transit to OFDI at stage 2 if firms exported at stage 1,and its profitability went beyond the threshold of transiting.At stage 1,firms were not certain about their profitability before they entered into international market,so they needed to test the profitability through export,because the total expected profits through export was positive based on their expected profitability and the threshold of export profit,however the total expected profits through OFDI was negative.The following discussion about the probability of the transition from export to OFDI showed that the more uncertain firms were before they went into international market,the more important export testing was,and higher probable it was for firms to transit from export to OFDI at stage 2.Due to the correlation of uncertainty between similar markets,the firm's export and/or OFDI experiences would decrease the perceptible uncertainty,and thus lowered the probability of transiting to OFDI.Secondly,the paper described the stylized facts of Chinese firms'internationalization based on the data of Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database,Chinese Customs Database,and Overseas Investment Enterprise Directory and found the following facts.First,99.995%samples had no OFDI experience before they exported to the foreign markets,and 88.04%samples had local export experience before they OFDI in host countries,showing that most OFDI firms had experienced the development of export,and at the same time the majority among the transiting firms had export experience of more than 5 years.Second,in the sampling period,OFDI firms,transiting firms,export firms,and domestic firms ranked from high to low according to the productivity,which meant that the higer productivity firms had,the more likely they invested overseas or transited to OFDI.Third,regarding the distribution of markets,the transitions were highly concentrated in Hong Kong and the U.S,and the transiting firms were mainly located in six important export provinces which were Zhejiang,Shandong,Jiangsu,Fujian,Sichuan,and Guangdong.The degree of concentration on industries was not so high,and the frequency of transition was high in two industries,which were textiles and communication device,computer and other electronics devices.Private firms accounted for 66.02%in transiting firms,followed with foreign firms which were accounted for 19.34%,and the percentages of State-owned firms and collective-owned firms were the least.These stylized facts meant that the development conditions of export were very important to the transition to OFDI.Thirdly,the paper empirically analyzed how Chinese firms' transitited from export to OFDI from two aspects.On the one hand,from the perspective of export increasing firms' productivity,the paper analyzed how firms transited from export to OFDI.The paper adopted PSM to test if export increased productivity,and analyze the productivity effects of each period after export and of each category firms,so as to test the influence of productivity effects on transition to OFDI.The paper found that export increased firms' productivity,the productivity effect was the biggest at the moment of export,then decreased gradually,the productivity effects of starting exporters and continuous exporters were remarkably positive,the productivity effects of exit exporters were negative,the productivity gains of private firms and stated-owned firms were rather great,and those of foreign firms were rather small.Based on these results,the paper adopted probit model to anylize the effects of export increasing productivity.The results showed that productivity gains from export had remarkable positive influence on firms transiting to OFDI.New exporters and continuous exporters had remarkably increased the probability of transiting to OFDI,and exiting exporters had remarkably lowered the probability of transiting to OFDI.As the accumulated effect of productivity got larger along with the export,the promotions to transitions were getting higer along with the development of export.The marginal effects showed that though improving productivity could promote the transition,the effects were not up to what had been expected,implying that there could be other influential factors on OFDI,or there could be other more important pathways for transition.The empirical results of group sampling showed that productivity gains from export of state-owned firms,private firms and collectively-owned firms would remarkably improve the probability of transition,while those of foreign firms not.On the other hand,from the perspective of uncertainty,the paper explored the effects of export experiences on transiting to OFDI.First based on the whole samples including exporters and non-exporters,the paper adopted PSM to confirm the continuous remarkable influence of export on firms' OFDI decision.After that,based on exporters' samples,the paper adopted Cox proportional hazard model to explore the effects of uncertainty and export experience on Chinese firms' transition from export to OFDI.The paper found that the more uncertain foreign markets were,the more important export experiences were,but along with the export,the uncertainty that firms could perceive became lower and lower gradually,and the influence of export experience on transition decreasing gradually.The comparation between the effects of lowering uncertainty and improving productivity showed that the former was the more important pathway for transition.Export experiences from similar markets significantly reduced the probability of the transition to OFDI,however the OFDI experience went oppositely.The results of group sampling showed that the importance of export experiences of private and foreign-owned firms decays.The first 2 and 3 years' export experiences are the most important for collectively-owned firms,and the following will decay.Export experiences of state-owned firms influence their OFDI decisions irregularly.Finally,based on the theoretical and empirical analysis,the paper offered the following proposals,including manufacturing firms should entered into international market with proper modes incrementally,export firms should transit to OFDI rationally based on their export experiences,the authorities should properly guide firms to manage internationally based on identifying the differences between firms,and to improve the current investment promoting measures from the perspective of export transiting to OFDI.The paper also made a conclusion on the future research at the end. |
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