The Changes And Influence-Factors Of Export Technical Sophistication

The proposition of The Changes and Influence-Factors of Export Technical Sophistication (ETS) is the core study of this thesis. By building the modified export technical sophistication measurement model, we try to measure the export technical sophistication of 48 sample countries, which will be compared after. Then, the different influence factors of ETS changes of China and other sample countries will be studied through comparative analysis and empirical analysis.Firstly, comparing with several measure methods of the export technical sophistication (ETS), this thesis chooses two-step-modified ETS measurement model to measure that TADD index of all products in 96 chapters under HS classification and ETS indexes of 48 countries. The two-step-modified model includes transportation of export to production, by using export dependency index to do improvement in order to correct the "re-export" bias error on ETS, and transportation of GDP per person employed to traditional GDP per person, in order to correct the "nonproducing" population bias error. The conclusion is that although the trends of technical content of most products are upward, the differences between products are still remarkable, and the ETS indexes of 48 sample countries reveal a significant raise due to the development of world economy.Secondly, this thesis classifies 48 sample countries into several groups to compare the export technical sophistication (ETS) of those groups with China from 2002 to 2012. We find that the ETS indexes of "BRICS" (Brazil Russia India China and South Africa) exceed the average of 48 sample countries. The growth of the ETS indexes of developed countries in Europe and North America is relatively stable. The ETS indexes of "PIGS" (Portugal Italy Irish Greece and Spain) increase slowly because of the European Debt Crisis. However, the growth rate of China ETS index doesn’t show the convergence trend to the average level, which indicates that the potential of China ETS index upgrading is worth expected. Then, through statistical analysis, we try to study the relationship between the changes of China ETS index and related economic variables. Combined with the previous studies, we find these changes can be impacted by human capital, foreign direct investment (FDI), infrastructure investment, financial development and R&D investment; meanwhile, real effective exchange rate (REER) also plays an important role to the changes.Thirdly, this thesis tries to build a two steps system generalized method of moments (TWOSTEP SYS-GMM) model, based on transnational panel data, to reach more reliable conclusions of influence factors act on the changes of ETS index. The empirical study shows that the construction of urbanization, the using of FDI, the increasing of money supply and the applications of residents for patents are positive to the ETS increase; while the raise of telephone lines per 100 person and the increase of weighted average tariffs are negative to the ETS increase; meanwhile, increase of REER will promote the upgrading of ETS index, but the variance of REER will restrain this upgrading.Finally, based on the conclusions above, this thesis suggests that government should be the "guide" and "servant" to support the upgrading of ETS index, by consummating the market system. Besides, in order to achieve this upgrading, we need to create the suitable market atmosphere, and to improve the market environment of our economy.