| The 2008 financial crisis makes a serious cut of global export trade which is mainly for decrease both the numbers of export enterprises and the export scale of one enterprise at the same time.Therefore,the role of credit constraints on export trades of enterprises is played more and more attention.Generally,the direct export enterprises need external financing because they need to pay higher fixed costs than in the domestic sales.Therefore,credit constraints shall limit the enterprise's export scale,ultimately affect a country's total exports.In this regard,domestic and foreign scholars,led by Manova(2013)provide solutions to alleviate the credit constraints from many aspects such as the reform of financial market and improved the efficiency of capital flow.And this paper provides a new perspective for this problem,namely,the participation of trade intermediaries in the export of enterprises,which is also called export enterprise's "self-selection" response to the credit constraints.In real economy,the export mode of enterprises is diversified,including direct export,indirect export through trade intermediaries and combined with the advantage of both mixed export mode.As specialized export enterprises,trade intermediaries have scale economy effect,which can reduce fixed costs from the source.In other words,trade intermediaries made a further subdivided according to the productivity level on a basis of the heterogeneity of enterprise trade theory,represented by Melitz(2003)and Helpman et al.(2004):the most productive enterprises invest overseas directly,some more productive enterprises export directly,while another productive enterprises,which Those firms that are highly productive,but are unable to undertake direct export costs due to credit constraints,can be exported indirectly through trade intermediaries.According to this,enterprises facing credit constraints can dependent on trade intermediary in a certain extent when deciding their export.Therefore,enterprises can reduce the export cost by converting the export model according to credit constraints,thus easing the restraining effect of credit constraints on exports.Based on this,this paper analysis the effect of trade intermediaries on the enterprises' export under credit constraints on the basis of heterogeneous firm trade theory,What's more,in order to improve the explanatory power of real trade issues,the trade theory model further considers multi-product enterprises.In the realistic background of significant drop in export and difficulty in financing,establishing a unified research framework including the credit constraints and trade intermediary has important practical significance.First of all,based on existing research,this paper embed credit constraints and trade intermediary into heterogeneous firm trade theory,built an endogenous theoretical framework of credit constraints and trade intermediary,not only theoretically analyzes the influence of trade intermediaries on firms' export decisions and exports volumes under the credit constraints,but also introduces multi product enterprises.Theoretical analysis shows that credit constraint raises the productivity threshold of firm's direct export,which leads to the enterprises whose productivity level have reached at the critical value cannot directly export,while productivity threshold of export through trade intermediary are significantly lower than direct export.Therefore,thoes enterprises that are excluded from the export market due to credit constraints can choose to export indirectly through trade intermediaries.Second,direct exporting needs higher fixed costs,therefore,credit constraints have a significant inhibitory effect on that.While the previous experience of export through trade intermediaries has external positive effect,and reduces the direct exporting cost of the enterprise in the current period,helps enterprises' export mode transform from indirect export or mixed export mode to direct export mode.That is,trade intermediaries have dynamic effect on enterprises' export decisions.Third,enterprises need to find new customers or overseas markets in order to expand export volumes,meanwhile,fixed costs fold increase,so the credit constraints put a brake on the expansion of enterprises to export.However,when export though trade intermediaries,the enterprises can sale their products to the global markets only need to assign a small portion of the profits to the trade intermediaries.Therefore,trade intermediaries can help enterprises to expand export scale under the credit constraints.Fourth,credit constraints are not conducive to the export of non-core technology products,which have a negative effect on the types of export products.By contrast,trade intermediaries are specialized exporters with the absolute advantage of exporting a variety of products.Trade intermediaries not only relieve the negative effect caused by credit constraints,but also help enterprises export products without competitive advantages and reduce the range of export products,therefore improve export concentration of products.Secondly,this paper makes a comprehensive description of the credit constraints faced by enterprises,and uses "the name recognition method" and "the matching method" to analyze the important role of trade intermediary in export in China from 2005 to 2009 by using the matched dataset of "China Customs Database" and "Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database".We find that,the average credit constraints faced by exporting enterprises are lower than those of non-exporters,and that faced by direct exporters are lower than those indirectly exported through trade intermediaries.The private enterprises face the hignest credit constraints,thoes indirectly exported through trade intermediaries take up the biggest proportion.The enterprise' export mode have the distinct tentative and transitional features,namely the most enterprises follow a dynamic evolution process of never export,first export through trade intermediaries,and then export directly.Using the method of "name recognition",we find that the trade intermediary account for 20%above in the total exports of our country.Similarly,through the "match method" to separate the indirect export part from the all exports,we find that the proportion of indirect exports of industrial enterprises through trade intermediaries is more than 40%in all.Moreover,trade intermediaries have the absolute advantage of exporting a variety of products,help multi-product enterprises export some product types under the credit constraints.Thirdly,we empirically analyze to further verify the above theoretical analysis conclusions and typical facts from three aspects:From the perspective of the export decisions,we analyze the static and dynamic effects of trade intermediaries on enterprise export.This paper investigate whether enterprises' export dacisions depend on trade intermediary under the condition of credit constraints by using multi-value selection model,and the results report that the more severe the credit constraints,the lower the probability of direct exports and mixed exports,and more likely to be indirect or non-export.The empirical results of grouping test demonstrates that the severe credit-constraints reduce the export probability of state-owned enterprises in the three export modes,and have made thoes more inclined to avoid exporting.For private enterprises,the probability of direct export and mixed export decrease,but the probability of indirect export increases.While for froeign enterprises,the probability of direct export is lower,but the probability of mixed export and indirect export are increase significantly.Based on this,we introduce furtherly the time factor to explore whether the trade intermediaries under the credit constraint have a dynamic effect on enterprises' export decisions.In this paper,a binary choice model is adopted to examine the influence of the previous export experience through the trade intermediary on the direct export decisions.We find that the credit constraints significantly reduce the possibility of direct export of enterprises,but the previous experience through trade intermediaries can play an important role in promoting the direct export of enterprises.The results of grouping test show the direct exporting decisions of private enterprises and foreign enterprises are restrained by credit constraints.The previous export experiences increase significantly the probability current direct export for all these firms,and the trade intermediaries have the greatest dynamic effect on foreign-funded enterprises,followed by private enterprises and state-owned enterprises.From the perspective of export volumes,this paper discusses the role of trade intermediaries in the promotion of enterprises exports under credit constraints.this part is mainly divided into two steps for empirical testing.In the first step,the trade intermediary variable is introduced into the regression equation,and the panel least-squares fixed effect model was used to examine whether the trade intermediary increased the export value of the company under the credit constraints,whether can reverse the restriction of credit constraints on the export volumes of enterprises.We find credit constraints have significantly reduced the amount of exports of enterprises.And trade intermediaries have not only helped enterprises expand exports,but have also significantly relieved the adverse effects.In the second step,this paper compares and analyzes the different effects of credit constraints on the export volumes of direct exporting enterprises,mixed exporting enterprises,and indirect exporting enterprises,and further provides evidence for the important role of trade intermediation in the expansion of exports under credit constraints.The rasults show that the credit constraints have a significant inhibitory effect on the export value of enterprises under the three export modes,but it has the smallest marginal impact on indirect export enterprises.The empirical results of grouping test demonstrates that the export value of private enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises is limited by credit constraints,and the marginal impact of credit constraints on the former is greater than that of the latter.Trade intermediaries have played an important role in promoting the expansion of the export volume of the three types of enterprises,among which the largest ones are for state-owned enterprises,followed by foreign-funded enterprises and the smallest for private companies,and have relieved the impact of credit constraints on private and foreign companies.A grouping teat based on types of enterprises and the export model demonstrates that the credit constraints significantly inhibit the export scale of state-owned enterprises under the indirect export model,and have an important restrictive effect on the export scale of private enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises under the three different export modes.In terms of marginal effect,credit constraints have the greatest impact on the export value under direct export model,followed by mixed exports and indirect exports for private firms.The foreign-funded firms' sorts are based on the mixed export model,direct export model,and indirect export model.This article discusses the impact of trade intermediaries on the export of multi-product companies under the constraints of credit from the perspective of the product categories of direct export.There are two steps to demonstrate the relationship.The first step is to examine whether credit constraints and trade intermediaries reduce the types of products directly exported by enterprises.Showing the "cost-saving effects" and "substitution effects" when companies use trade intermediation to export some products to ease credit constraints.The second step is to test whether the enterprise has made a strategic "self-selection" of product types when exporting some products through trade intermediaries.In this regard,the paper uses the negative binomial regression in the counting model to examine the effect of trade intermediation on the types of direct export products of multi-product companies under credit constraints.The results show that both credit constraints and trade intermediaries have a negative effects on the product species that multi-product companies exports directly.Further,the substitution effect is bigger than the cost-saving effect when industrial companies distribute some products through trade intermediation to ease credit constraints.This paper adopts a panel least-squares fixed-effects model to further examine the direct export concentration of the company.The results show that trade intermediaries have significantly improved the direct export concentration of multi-product companies,and confirmed that industrial enterprises have adopted a "self-selection" strategy for product categories when exporting through trade intermediaries.The group tests results based on the nature of ownership indicate that the types of products directly exported by the three types of companies are significantly inhibited by the credit constraints.The trade intermediary not only narrows the range of products directly exported by these companies,but also increases the concentration of the direct export.The cost-saving effect of state-owned enterprises in relieving credit constraints through trade intermediary exports is greater than the substitution effect and foreign-funded enterprises are exactly the opposite,however the results of private enterprises are difficult to distinguish between the two effects.To ensure the validity of the empirical research results,this paper fully considered the omitted variables,endogenous problems and sampling bias on the basis of the benchmark test.We also made robustness tests using the method of replacing main explanatory variables,instrumental variable method,changing the sample and the modified poisson's pseudo maximum likelihood and propensity score matching method,all the results support the benchmark test conclusion,which indicates that the empirical research results are robust and validFinally,this paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions for promoting the export of Chinese enterprises and development of China's export trade based on the main conclusions of theoretical and empirical research.From the micro perspective,enterprises should choose the participation of trade intermediaries based on their own credit constraints and the needs for export multi-products,so as to ensure the maximization of export profits.From the national macro perspective,the related departments of government should promote financial reform and encourage the development of the trade intermediary company.Furthermore,the government should provide fair financing environment and more choices of export models for enterprises. |
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