Research On Relationship Between Information Technology And Export Performance Of China’s Enterprises From Perspective Of Product Quality Heterogeneity

Since the reform and opening up,China’s economy has a high-speed,stable and sustainable development,in which the international trade as one of the "three carriages"maintains a two digit growth.With the continuous development of science and technology,China’s information and communication technology(IT)has made remarkable progress.National information infrastructure construction will continue to improve,and application of information technology in enterprises of our country is wider.As representatives of information technology,application of electronic commerce,internet,and other communication technology in enterprises reduces the cost of enterprise’s data acquisition,conversion and transmission,and improves data accuracy and effectiveness.The development of electronic commerce prompted the traditional"paper trade" gradually been instead of "paperless trading",information technology will continue to have an extremely far-reaching impact on export enterprises.Therefore,study of relationship between them is of great practical value to improve the export of Chinese enterprises.I find that most of discussions about effects of information technology on international trade are still at national level,but enterprises are the real subject to make decisions to export.The level of information technology application in production process affects firm’s export performance directly or indirectly.Previous studies are mostly about how information technology affects the export performance through reducing cost of production and transaction,and some studies show that information technology directly or indirectly affects product quality:export enterprises depend not only on production cost,also depend on product quality.Therefore,this paper not only expands current academic research in this area,but also provides an improvement direction for enterprises to improve product quality through application of information technology,and thus improve export of enterprises.This paper is divided into five parts.In the first chapter,I will introduce the background of research,theoretical significance and practical value,and make a systematic review of domestic and foreign research results.In the second chapter,based on Melitz model,I will deduce the theoretical model and obtain assumptions.In the third chapter,I will introduce present situation of information technology development and international trade in China.In the fourth chapter,the paper will focus on the relationship between information technology,capital intensity,customization,product quality and export.In the fifth chapter,I will make an empirical analysis on the relationship between information technology and international trade of China.In the sixth chapter,I will make a general summary of the research conclusions of this paper,and put forward corresponding suggestions for government and enterprises to improve export of enterprises based on the conclusions of the paper.In the foundation of the main idea of Melitz(2003),from the micro enterprise level,I innovatively introduce information technology,product quality heterogeneous,capital intensity and customization and establish a new theoretical model,trying to prove that strengthen of information technology affects export performance of enterprises through improving product quality.In the empirical part,applying the survey data of World Bank for 12400 Chinese companies in 2002-2004,I will make benchmark regression by Tobit model to verify assumptions,and verify robustness of the results using Heckman two-step method.The main innovations of this paper are as follows:First,it enriches the theoretical model.In reference to Melitz(2003)"Trade to Intra industry Integration of Redistribution and Industrial Productivity Effect" theory model,innovatively add information technology,product quality and capital intensity and deduce the relation of export,information technology,product quality and capital intensity,and put forward assumptions derived from the theoretical model.Second,it introduces product quality heterogeneity.Although more and more discussions are on the relationship between information technology and trade based on enterprises’ data,they usually do not contain information of products and price.In this paper,I research the impact of enterprises’ information technology application on product quality,income and export status.Although the paper has carried on innovations based on Melitz model,there are still a lot of problems.The paper studies positive role of information technology on foreign trade.But because my research ability is limited,the paper does not involve whether the intoduction of information technology will bring a negative impact on international trade.The above problems need to be further improved in the future.