| With the gradual integration of Chinese economy into the global division of labor,import and export business are playing increasingly important roles in the survival and development of micro enterprises,and has become an indispensable part of the business activities in enterprises.Procurement and sales activities are no longer limited to domestic,more and more Chinese enterprises extend their supply chains overseas to seek more professional division of labor and broader market space.However,in recent years,uncertainties in international economy continue to breed,which makes import and export business of Chinese enterprises face pressure and challenges from various aspects.Main three problems in import and export business of China enterprises currently are as follow:(1)As for import and export scales,because of the vanishing of demographic dividend and the strengthening of pollution control efforts in China,Chinese companies export products in international market has been gradually lose cost advantage,which leads to higher difficulty in overseas sales.(2)As for import and export risks,the U.S.imposed upstream supply chain blocking on Chinese technology companies such as Huawei and ZTE,and prohibited American technology companies from exporting to Chinese companies that had been "blacklisted".As a result,the import and export business of Chinese enterprises faced the risk of interruption at any time,thus putting production and operation in a passive and difficult position.(3)As for import and export efficiency,under the influence of COVID-19,import and export commodities are not only subject to strict quarantine work of customs,but also may face sudden outbreak and "Total lockdown" policy,which reduces the import and export efficiency.It can be seen that how to expand transaction scale,reduce transaction risk and improve transaction efficiency have become the three major problems that need to be solved in the production and operation activities of Chinese enterprises with import and exportactivities.As an important innovative institution of trade market opening in China,whether China pilot Free Trade zone can create a better trade market environment by improving the level of trade liberalization and facilitation,and thus improve the import and export status of Chinese micro enterprises is a problem worthy of indepth study.Based on this,this paper studies the differences of import and export behaviors of enterprises before and after the establishment of the pilot FTZ from the micro enterprise level.Based on transaction cost theory,theory of institutional comparative advantage,theory of liquidity risk and adjustment cost theory,by matching the basic information of Chinese listed companies with China Customs import and export Database to access to annual import and export trade data of listed companies,and establishing propensity score matching(PSM)and multi-period difference in difference model(DID),this paper tested the changes of import and export scale,import and export risk as well as import and export efficiency of Chinese listed companies before and after the establishment of the pilot FTZ,and their specific mechanism and heterogeneity.The research conclusions of this paper mainly include the following three aspects.First,the influence of the establishment of pilot FTZs on the import and export scale of micro enterprises:based on the perspective of overseas procurement and sales scale.This paper studies the influence of the establishment of pilot FTZs on the scale of import,export,import and export transactions of enterprises in the zones,and discusses the time-lag characteristics,action path and the linkage effect with the "Belt and Road" system.Then,the heterogeneity of property rights,regions and industries is studied.The empirical regression results show that:(1)After the establishment of the pilot FTZ,enterprises significantly increase their import transaction scale,but not export transaction scale;(2)Further research on export shows that it takes at least three years for the establishment of pilot FTZs to promote enterprises’ export trade scale.At the same time,after the establishment of the pilot FTZ,enterprises significantly increased the proportion of General trade in export transactions,but did not significantly affect the proportion of processing trade,indicating that the establishment of the pilot FTZ enables enterprises to gradually change the type of export transactions from low-technology and high-pollution processing trade to high-tech and high value-added General trade.(3)For the enterprise to import further research results show that after the construction of the FTZ,the existing import trading enterprises to further expand its own imports,but the possibility of enterprise involved in import business has not increased significantly,and that FTZ reduces the transaction cost of import and export enterprises,but did not significantly reduce import market barriers to entry;(4)After the establishment of the pilot FTZ,enterprises that import or export from countries along the Belt and Road will further expand their import or export transactions,indicating that the establishment of the pilot FTZ has a linkage effect with the Belt and Road system;(5)According to the heterogeneity test of property rights,regions and industries,it is shown that after the establishment of the pilot FTZ,foreign-controlled enterprises and state-owned enterprises will not significantly adjust their import and export scale,while non-foreign-controlled enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises will further expand their original transaction scale;Enterprises in coastal cities and non-coastal cities will actively use trade policies to increase the scale of import transactions,but will not make significant adjustments to the scale of export transactions.Both manufacturing enterprises and non-manufacturing enterprises will actively use trade policies to increase the scale of import transactions,but will not significantly change the scale of export transactions.Second,the establishment of pilot FTZs and enterprises’ import and export risks: based on the perspective of overseas procurement and sales volatility.This paper examines the effects of the establishment of pilot FTZs on the volatility of import,export,import and export transaction scale,transaction duration and transaction rupture risk of enterprises,as well as its specific mechanism,and studies the heterogeneity of property rights,regions and industries.The empirical regression results show that:(1)After the establishment of the pilot FTZ,the volatility level and the possibility of withdrawing of the import,export,import and export transactions of enterprises significantly decreased,and the duration of the transaction significantly increased;(2)Mechanism test results show that after the construction of the FTZ,firstly,the enterprises will significantly increase the import trading partners in the international diversification level,and thus reduce the import trade risks;Secondly,the sensitivity of export transactions to exchange rate fluctuations decreases;Finally,the influence of economic policy uncertainty on the fluctuation level of import and export transactions of enterprises in the zone is significantly reduced,indicating that the optimization of institutional environment helps reduce the risk of import and export transactions of enterprises.(3)According to the heterogeneity test of property rights,regions and industries,it is found that after the establishment of the pilot FTZ,the volatility of import,export,import and export transactions of non-foreign-controlled enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises decreases significantly instead of foreign-controlled and state-owned enterprises.The transaction volatility of enterprises in non-coastal cities has been significantly reduced instead of those in coastal cities.The volatility of import,export and import and export transactions of upstream enterprises decreased significantly instead of downstream enterprises.Third,the establishment of pilot FTZs and import and export efficiency of enterprises: based on the perspective of Inventory and cost stickiness.From the perspective of enterprise Inventory and cost stickiness,this paper examines the change of enterprise import and export transaction efficiency after the establishment of the pilot FTZ and the mediating effect of adjustment cost,and studies the heterogeneity of property rights,Inventory cost,enterprise governance and institutional environment.The empirical regression results show that:(1)After the establishment of the pilot FTZ,import enterprises significantly reduce the Inventory level of raw materials,export enterprises significantly reduce the Inventory level of finished products,import and export enterprises on the whole reduce the Total Inventory level;At the same time,the cost stickiness level of import enterprises,export enterprises and import and export enterprises has been significantly reduced,indicating that the establishment of the pilot FTZ has significantly promoted the import and export efficiency of enterprises;(2)Mechanism test results show that after the construction of the FTZ,first of all,the enterprises in the area,can significantly improve its import,export and import and export trading frequency,enterprises will be more flexible free trade strategy,according to their own needs more time sensitive trade order,reduce the hoarding of import and export commodities,so as to promote efficiency of import and export business;Secondly,when conducting import,export and import and export transactions,enterprises in the zone will have a shorter lead time as a buffer,which enables enterprises to predict the number of transactions more accurately,thus reducing the level of demand for safe stock and promoting the efficiency of import and export transactions.Finally,the proportion of Total weight and Total value of exports and import and export transactions of enterprises in the zone has been significantly increased,indicating that the international transportation efficiency has been improved,and thus the import and export transaction efficiency of enterprises has been enhanced.(3)According to the heterogeneity test of property rights,Inventory cost,corporate governance and institutional environment,it is found that after the establishment of the pilot FTZ,the transaction efficiency of state-owned holding enterprises has not changed significantly,while the Inventory level and cost stickiness of non-stateowned holding enterprises have decreased significantly.The transaction efficiency of low Inventory cost enterprises is not significantly improved,but the Inventory level and cost stickiness of high Inventory cost enterprises are significantly alleviated.The transaction efficiency of enterprises with low governance level is not significantly improved,but the Inventory level and cost stickiness of enterprises with high governance level are significantly alleviated.The transaction efficiency of enterprises in low marketization regions has not been significantly improved,but the Inventory level and cost stickiness of enterprises in marketization regions have been significantly alleviated,indicating that the implementation of pilot FTZ system needs to be supplemented by a higher marketization environment to play a positive role in the production and operation of micro enterprises.The innovation of this paper mainly includes the following four points:First,this paper not only investigates the effect of free-trade area on import and export scale of micro enterprises,but also the effects on import and export volatility and the risk,as well as the efficiency of the import and export by using Inventory level and cost viscosity as its agent variables.The relationship between the establishment of pilot FTZs and enterprises’ import and export behaviors were explored in a more comprehensive and in-depth way in this paper,and more empirical evidence and theoretical support for Chinese enterprises participation in overseas markets was also provided.Secondly,this paper combines transaction cost theory with theory of institutional comparative advantage,and studies the impact of the implementation of institution reducing non-tariff transaction cost on enterprises’ import and export behavior decisions from the perspective of micro level,which is conducive to a deeper understanding of the internal relationship between the two theories and their specific mechanism of action at the micro enterprise level.Third,this paper applied theory of liquidity risk in trade market research,chose FTZ as a trading market liquidity risk research scene.By discussing the change of import and export business risk as well as volatility characteristic during the establishment of FTZs,this paper found the risk diversification effect of high liquidity in market and portfolio strategy for import and export business,which verifies the validity of liquidity risk theory in trade market research.Fourth,this paper used the frequency,lead time and weight ratio of import and export trade as the proxy variable of adjustment cost,examined the mediating effect of adjustment cost in the FTZ build influencing enterprise efficiency of import and export trading.And through the theoretical analysis of the influence of transaction costs on adjustment costs,this paper found that the transaction cost is an important source of enterprise trade adjustment cost. |
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