Research On The Effect Of Intermediate Input Inports On TFP In China

In recent years,China's import of intermediate input goods continues to expand.According to the UN COMTRADE database,since the accession to the World Trade Organization,the share of China's imports of intermediate goods in the total manufacturing imports over the same period has accounted for an average of 74.17%.Obviously,the imports of intermediate goods have become the most important component of China's imports of goods.Imports of intermediate products often contain more advanced technology or higher added value.Therefore,the import of intermediate products plays an important role in the technological progress of our manufacturing enterprises,the enhancement of total factor productivity and the upgrading of industrial structure.Especially during the "new normal" period,the comparative advantage of export of traditional labor-intensive products is almost disappearing.Under such circumstances,most manufacturing enterprises in our country have entered a "painful period" of restructuring their products.At this moment,how to realize the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing enterprises in our country faster and more effectively through the import of intermediate goods is an important realistic problem that many enterprises need to solve urgently.At the same time,the research on this issue is also one of the focuses and hot issues in academic research.According to the literature at home and abroad,the research literature on the relationship between imported intermediate products and total factor productivity of enterprises has been increasing in recent years.However,up to now,there is no agreement on this issue in academia.The conclusions of the existing literatures can be roughly divided into three categories:The first one is that intermediate imports promote the growth of TFP in China through such channels as "learning effect","horizontal effect" and "price effect".The second view is that the imports of intermediate products do not have a significant role in promoting TFP in our country.The third view holds that whether the import of intermediate goods promotes the growth of total factor productivity in China has some constraints.For example,some papers have found that only high-quality and technologically advanced imports of intermediate goods can significantly improve the total factor productivity.It should be pointed out that most documents generally overlook the typical feature of the existence of imported intermediate products.That is,imported intermediary products,like the production factors such as labor and capital,also have price distortions.However,unlike the factors of production such as labor and capital,the price of imported intermediate products tends to be distorted in the positive direction.This is because imported intermediate products often contain more advanced technology,and only a few developed countries can produce and export by virtue of the production technology they own about intermediate products.In other words,there is a high degree of monopolization in the production market for imported intermediate goods.In order to earn more monopoly profits,developed countries often rely on their monopoly technological superiority in the production of intermediate goods to impose excessive "cost markup" on intermediate products,thus easily causing the transaction price of imported intermediate products to be significantly "raised".Therefore,it is extremely easy to form the "forward distortion"of the price of imported intermediate goods.Another case is that the affiliate agency of the TNCs of developed countries in host countries will import intermediate products at "internal prices" in order to maximally avoid tax,which would also create"price distortions" of imported intermediate products.In this case,how to measure the price distortion of imported intermediate products?And what is the degree of China's imports of intermediate goods?How does the distorted price of imported intermediate goods affect the total factor productivity in our country?It is a pity that no literature has yet explored this issue in depth by now.Based on the continuous expansion of China's imports of intermediate products in recent years as the writing background and the price distortion of imports of intermediate products as the starting point,this paper discusses the effect of price distortions of imported intermediate products on the TFP of China's manufacturing enterprises and gives the corresponding policies suggestions.The main contents of this paper include:the measurement of the distortions of China's import of intermediate goods and the description of typical stylized facts,the measurement methods of China's manufacturing total factor productivity,the mechanism of the price distortion of imported intermediate goods on the total factor productivity,the influence channels,the direction and the degree of the distortion of imported intermediate goods on TFP and some corresponding measures of avoiding the negative effect of the distortion on the total factor productivity and some policy suggestions.Specifically,Chapter 3 of this paper focuses on the theoretical mechanism of the effect of distorted prices of imported intermediate goods on total factor productivity,and then puts forward the basic theory hypothesis.Based on a comparatively scientific method,the main contents of fourth chapter is to measure the price distortion of China's imports of intermediate goods and the typical characteristics of the distortion of imported intermediate goods in detail for the purpose of verifying the existence of price distortions of China's imported intermediate products and the existence of some characteristics which could provide the necessary factual evidences for the following empirical analysis.The fifth and sixth chapters are the parts of empirical analysis,during which the fifth chapter focuses on the test of the theoretical hypothesis of the third chapter,that is,to examine the distorted import prices of intermediate products' impact direction and the size of extent on China's manufacturing sector total factor productivity.The initial regression of sample,endogenous treatment and a series of robustness tests are made in this chapter.The following empirical results verify the theoretical hypothesis in chapter 3 and draw some valuable conclusions.For example,the price distortion of imported intermediate products will significantly inhibit the increase of total factor productivity,the degree of restriction of the price distortions of the intermediate products on TFP in Europe and American areas have a significantly greater than that in other areas.When the degree of distortions is heavier,the degree of inhibition of total factor productivity is greater.The influence of distortion on total factor productivity has significant differences in ownership,industry differences and trade patterns.And Chapter 6 focuses on the test of the mechanism of the effect of price distortions of imported intermediate products on total factor productivity.Our empirical tests are conducted from three aspects:"learning effect","competitive effect" and "price effect",respectively.The test results show that there is a significant "learning effect" in the price distorting of imported intermediate goods,that is,the lighter the distorting price of imported intermediate goods and the more import types,the faster the total factor productivity of manufacturing enterprises in our country ascends.If the product and technology gap is more reasonable,the degree of restriction of the distortions on the total factor productivity would be significantly reduced.There is a significant"competition effect" in the price distortions of imported intermediate imports,that is,the distortions in the prices of imported intermediate goods cause the decrease of import volume and type of intermediate goods,and weakened facing competition of the intermediate goods,which is not conducive to the improvement of total factor productivity.We also find that the "price effect" of the distorted import price of intermediate products is not obvious.According to the further regression of the median of "price effect" indicators under heavier circumstances,we find that thedistortion of imported intermediate goods on TFP will significantly inhibit the growth of total factor productivity when the price distortion of imported intermediate goods becomes heavier than the median of distortion,and the distortion would not only does not inhibit the TFP but will promote the enhancement of total factor productivity when the distortion is lighter than the median of distortion.Based on the above theoretical and empirical findings,in the last chapter of this paper,we put forward policy proposals to avoid the influence of price distortions of imported intermediate products on total factor productivity from government level and enterprise level respectively.