The Effects Of Demographic Transition On Chinese Export Quality Upgrade

In the 30 years since the reform and opening up of China,the country’s low factor cost advantage has propelled "Made in China" to a competitive global position,helping to achieve unprecedented economic growth.However,"if we keep fighting at the low end of the industrial chain,if we keep crawling at the bottom of the ’smile curve’,if we keep staying in the lowest value-added manufacturing segment but fail to capture the high value-added R&D and sales segments,there will be no fundamental way out".Moreover,with China’s "demographic dividend" bottoming out and labour costs rising in recent years,the traditional advantages on which "Made in China" relied no longer exist.In this context,how to upgrade the quality of export products as soon as possible has become a difficult problem in front of China’s high-quality development.As one of the basic elements of production,changes in the structure of the workforce have a significant impact on the production decisions of enterprises.With the implementation of population and education policies and the impact of economic development,China’s population structure is characterised by "ageing,skilled and highly educated".On the one hand,the ageing population has led to the loss of the comparative advantage of China’s traditional labour-intensive industries,making it difficult for China to continue its development model of "low-end embedding" in the global value chain;on the other hand,China has launched a series of education development and talent strategies in recent years,leading to a rapid increase in the quality structure of the population in terms of labour force skills and human capital.On the other hand,China has launched a series of education development and talent strategies in recent years,which have led to a rapid increase in the quality structure of the workforce,the level of skills and the stock of human capital.These two facts constitute both opportunities and challenges for the future upgrading of China’s export product quality,and to better grasp the opportunities and meet the challenges,we need to fully clarify the impact of demographic changes on export quality upgrading and the underlying mechanisms.In view of this,this paper systematically examines the impact of demographic change on China’s export quality upgrading from the perspective of factor quantity,factor quality and their structural nature.Firstly,the theoretical basis of the study is clarified,the connotations of demographic change and export quality upgrading are defined,and the mechanism and transmission mechanism of the influence of demographic change on export quality upgrading are constructed and demonstrated using mathematical models.Secondly,we provide a statistical description of the current situation of export quality upgrading and demographic transformation in China,and use various econometric methods such as static and dynamic empirical tests,threshold panel model tests and multiplicative difference method tests based on macro-regional level and micro-enterprise level data to systematically examine the impact of demographic transformation on export quality upgrading from three aspects,namely,population ageing,labour force skill structure and human capital structure,respectively.The "artificial intelligence-ageing compensation substitution effect","capital-skill complementarity effect" and "technological innovation effect" have been systematically investigated in three aspects,namely,population ageing,labour force skill structure and human capital structure,further extending and broadening the research horizon of the impact of demographic change on export quality upgrading.The research horizon on the impact of demographic transformation on export quality upgrading is further extended and broadened.Finally,it attempts to provide policy insights for China’s future coordination of demographic and production structure transformation to achieve export product quality upgrading.The main research elements and findings include.First,the "AI-ageing compensatory substitution effect" of population ageing on export quality upgrading.The specific findings are: based on the empirical test of the threshold panel model,it is found that when the level of AI development is low,i.e.below the threshold value,there is a weak but insignificant negative effect of ageing on the technical complexity of exports;while when the level of AI development exceeds the threshold value,the effect of ageing on the technical complexity of exports turns from negative to positive,realising the "AI-ageing compensatory substitution effect"and promoting the quality upgrade of exports.substitution effect",which promotes the upgrading of export quality.There is a threshold effect of ageing and AI on export technical complexity respectively.Ageing has a positive effect on export technical complexity at the beginning,but as ageing deepens,the negative effect of ageing on export technical complexity strengthens;in the early stage of AI development,due to the low return on asset investment,it has a certain drag on export technical complexity,but when the threshold value is crossed,it will have a significant contribution to export quality The impact of AI on technological sophistication in the early stage of development is a drag on export quality,but when the threshold is crossed,it has a significant contribution to export quality upgrading.Further,the "AI-ageing compensatory substitution effect" of AI and ageing is found to affect export quality upgrading through three channels: optimising the structure of the labour force,improving the efficiency of technological innovation and increasing the rate of capital formation.Second,the "capital-skill complementarity effect" of labour force skill structure on export quality upgrading.Specifically,the accelerated depreciation policy on fixed assets significantly contributes to the upgrading of the skill structure of the labour force,mainly by increasing the demand for skilled labour and reducing the demand for unskilled labour,which increases the relative employment ratio of skilled labour to unskilled labour,i.e.the upgrading of the skill structure of the employed labour force.It is further verified that the upgrading of labour force skill structure plays a mediating role in the influence of accelerated depreciation policy on the upgrading of enterprises’ export product quality,and promotes the upgrading of enterprises’ export product quality through realising the "capital-skill complementary effect",and the "capital-skill complementary effect The "capital-skill complementarity effect" is only significant for skilled labour,but not for unskilled labour.Third,the "technological innovation effect" of human capital on export quality upgrading.Specifically: based on the double difference model and triple difference model,the empirical test finds that the expansion of human capital brought about by the expansion of university enrollment can significantly improve the quality of export products.The effect of human capital expansion on export quality was found to be positive only in state-owned enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises,but negative in collective enterprises and individual enterprises,and insignificant in corporate enterprises and Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan enterprises.By introducing the grouping variable of "whether or not to participate in the mixed ownership reform",it was found that the effect of human capital expansion on the quality of export products was stronger for firms that had implemented mixed ownership reform than for firms that had not.Further,a mediating effects model was used to test the export quality upgrading effect of human capital expansion through the transmission mechanism of "human capital expansion-technological innovation-export quality upgrading",and the results verified that technological innovation plays a significant role in the impact of human capital expansion on the export quality of enterprises.The results verify that technological innovation plays a significant mediating role in the impact of human capital expansion on firms’ export quality.The main novelties of this study are the following three.(1)It incorporates the inclusion of population ageing,skilled labour and human capital into a unified analytical framework at the same time,based on mathematical models,theoretical analysis and empirical tests,to explore more systematically the impact of demographic transformation on export quality upgrading.(2)Existing studies still lack theoretical analysis and empirical evidence on the relationship between ageing,artificial intelligence and export quality upgrading,and there is little literature to explore the underlying mechanisms.Based on the "AI-ageing compensatory substitution effect",this paper expands the margins of the study on the impact of ageing and AI on export quality upgrading from three aspects: labour force structure,technological innovation efficiency and capital formation;and empirically fills the empirical gap of the impact of ageing and AI on export quality upgrading using Chinese data.(3)Based on the "capital-skill complementarity" hypothesis,the relationship between labour force skill structure and export quality upgrading under the impact of capital preference policies is explored,providing a new perspective for exploring the influencing factors of export quality upgrading.It is a test of the "capital-skill complementarity" hypothesis and further expands the theoretical boundaries of export trade.This study helps to expand the depth and breadth of academic research on demographic transformation and export quality upgrading,and provides a reference for China’s system to improve trade policy,population policy,education policy and industrial policy,as well as to optimise labour force allocation and achieve high-quality development,and is therefore of great theoretical and practical significance.