An Empirical Investigation Of ICT And International Trade

The invention and application of ICT is the most important inventions in the 20th century or even in the previous technological revolutions. Its inner characteristics such as global, regional, low cost and high efficiency make it easier to improve the international trade flows. The impact of ICT on economic and trade is far beyond people's expectations. And it has and will continue to generate far-reaching impact on the world economy. In the shifting to information economy, traditional commerce is out of the steps of time while trade based on ICT has great advances. It will be a new direction of trade. Therefore, China as the largest developing country, it is necessary to act activity. We need making strategy to face trade based on ICT, to face the impact, the pressure and chances in order to control our foreign business policies. That is the right way for us to challenge with other developed countries. Well, it can be seen how important to do research on the relationship between ICT and international trade.The paper firstly analyzes the situation of ICT and foreign trade in China, then we observed simultaneous rising up, based on the observations, we raising a question:whether do they have some connections. Next, we first give a derivation of a theory on how ICT will affect the trade flow, and give five predictions:1.ICT will promote the trade flow; 2.ICTwill reduce the importance of past linkages on trade flows; 3. ICT will alter the effect of distance on trade flow; 4.The impact of ICT on exporters is greater and importers; 5.ICT has greater effect on developing countries than developed countries. Then on the basis of gravity model, we use panel data methods make regression. The data used in the regressions are from 15 different countries or regions include China, ranging from 1999 to 2009. Finally, based on the conclusions we raise up some suggestions.