Research On The Effects Of China’s Manufacturing Productivity On The Margins Of Export

Since entering the 21 st century,China’s export scale has grown rapidly.The total export products and their proportion in the total export of world products have increased significantly.The types of export products account for more than 96% of the total export products in the world.As a country with a relatively sound industrial system,China’s manufacturing industry has a complete range of industrial sectors and a complete industrial system.In 2021,China’s manufacturing added value reached 31.4 trillion yuan,accounting for nearly 30 percent of the global manufacturing added value and ranking first in the world since 2010.While exports are rising,China’s labor productivity is also rising year by year.Heterogeneous firm trade theory holds that firms need to overcome entry sunk costs when entering export markets,and firms with higher productivity can make up for the entry costs.The development of trade enables enterprises with higher efficiency to export,while enterprises with lower productivity will withdraw from the market,and enterprises with high labor productivity will gain more market shares.The improvement of labor productivity is conducive to the export expansion of enterprises.The purpose of this paper is to test the influence of labor productivity on export margin by using the data of Chinese manufacturing enterprises.Based on the trade data between Chinese manufacturing enterprises and 30 major trading partners(regions)of China from 2000 to 2013,this paper weighted the export volume of enterprises into the number of export destinations,types of export products,export coverage and average export value.Among them,the number of export destinations,types of export products and export coverage rate measure the export expansion margin of enterprises.The average export value measures the export intensity margin of enterprises and explores the effect of labor productivity on the export margin of enterprises respectively.The empirical results show that the increase of labor productivity can increase the number of export destinations,product types and average export value of enterprises,and reduce the export coverage rate of enterprises.The increase of labor productivity can promote enterprises to expand export along the expansion margin and the intensive margin.From the comparison of coefficient,the effect of labor productivity on export intensive margin is more than that of expansion margin.From the perspective of different trade modes,the improvement of labor productivity mainly promotes the export expansion of processing trade enterprises along the expansion margin,and promotes the export expansion of general trade enterprises along the intensive margin.From the perspective of different types of enterprises,the improvement of labor productivity promotes foreign enterprises to expand exports along the intensive margin and expansion margin,and promotes domestic enterprises to expand exports along the intensive margin.Finally,based on the empirical research conclusion,this paper suggests that manufacturing enterprises should pay attention to improving labor productivity,and give play to the promoting role of labor productivity on export margin,especially the promoting role of labor productivity on export expansion margin,so as to improve the comprehensive competitiveness of enterprises.While encouraging the development of general trade,we should support the high-quality development of processing trade.Domestic enterprises should actively utilize foreign capital and increase the margin of export expansion.