中国进口与全球经济增长: 公司投资的国际证据

Translated title of the contribution: Chinese Imports and Global Economic Growth: International Evidence from Corporate Investment

刘京军, 鲁晓东, 张健

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

Abstract

随着中国成为世界最大的贸易国,如何全面评价中国对全球经济的影响是一个极其重要但尚未解决的问题。值得注意的是以往文献主要研究中国出口冲击,忽略了中国进口的影响。本文从中国进口视角出发,以全球39个主要国家或地区的上市公司为样本考察中国进口强度对世界企业投资的影响。研究结果表明,各国家或地区对中国的出口强度越高,相应当地企业的投资水平也越高,在考虑模型内生性后上述结果仍然稳健。中国进口通过以下机制影响企业投资:出口国比较优势占优的企业会因为中国进口强度的增加提高其投资,中国进口能缓解企业的融资约束以及经济不确定性对企业投资的负向影响。本文发现,在全球价值链分工体系日渐成熟的背景下,中国的经济发展对全球经济增长的作用既体现在出口方面,也体现在进口方面。本文的研究结论为理解中国进口对世界经济发展的影响提供了微观证据,这也是理解中国坚定贸易自由化以及经济全球化合理的基础。

In the 40 years since China's reform and opening up policy began, China has made tremendous progress in international trade. China has become the largest exporter and the second-largest importer in the world. Literature on the China trade shock has largely focused on China's export shocks, but noticeably absent is research on the effects of China's imports. In this study, we examine the effects of China's imports on corporate investment around the world. Using a large sample of international firms from the Compustat Global and North America databases, we document a positive relation between China's imports and worldwide corporate investment. We find that when China imports more from a given country industry, firms in that country-industry invest more. To establish the causality link, we use the foreign exchange rate and the import tariff as instrumental variables of China's imports. We exploit China's WTO accession as a natural experiment to conduct a difference-in-differences (DID) analysis. Our results from the IV-2SLS estimation and DID tests suggest a causal effect of China's imports on corporate investment.

Next, we explore the heterogeneous effects of China's imports on corporate investment. First, we split our sample countries into developing and developed economies. We find that the effects of China's imports are larger for developing countries. Second, in terms of geographic locations, we find that the effects of China's imports are stronger in the AsiaPacific region than in the Americas. Third, we consider a time-series variation of the effect of China's imports. We find that our results are driven by China's post-WTO period. We further explore the supply-chain spillover effects of China's imports. Instead of focusing on China's imports from the sample firms' own industries, we investigate the effects of China's imports from the firms' downstream and upstream industries. Our results suggest that China's imports from the downstream (upstream) industries lead to higher (lower) corporate investment in the upstream (downstream) industries. Finally, we compare the effects of China's imports to those of the US's imports and India's imports. When we consider the imports of the US and India separately, we observe a positive effect of India's imports on corporate investment. The US's imports do not have a significant effect. More importantly, when the three countries' imports are all included into a single regression model, only China's imports have a positive effect on worldwide corporate investment.

Moreover, we propose and find evidence for three mechanisms through which China's imports have an impact on corporate investment. First, we propose a unique channel in our international trade setting—the trade participants' comparative advantage. Given that firms in a country with higher comparative advantage benefit more from China's imports, they invest more to capture future demand and profit. Consistent with this argument, we find that the effects of China's imports are significantly stronger for firms with higher comparative advantages. Second, we argue that China's imports help alleviate firms' financial constraints, and thus firms can invest more. Using various measures of financial constraints, we find consistent results that the effects of China's imports are stronger for firms that face higher financial constraints. Third, China's imports also help firms to mitigate economic uncertainty. Using a country-level index of economic policy uncertainty, we find that the effects of China's imports are stronger for firms that operate in more uncertain economic environments.

Our study makes two major contributions. First, we extend the literature on the China trade shock by providing a fresh perspective. Prior literature has largely focused on China's exports and the impacts on the importing countries. In contrast, we focus on China's imports and examine the impacts on the exporting countries. To better understand the China trade shock and evaluate its implications, both components of China's trade—imports and exports—are indispensable. Second, we contribute to the literature by linking a macro-level study of international trade to a micro-level study of corporate investment. Taking advantage of comprehensive international data, we provide large-sample evidence that China's imports have important impacts on worldwide corporate investment. We also provide evidence for the mechanisms through which China's imports affect corporate investment. Our results suggest that trading with China benefits local firms and local economies.
Translated title of the contributionChinese Imports and Global Economic Growth: International Evidence from Corporate Investment
Original languageChinese (Simplified)
Pages (from-to)73-88
Number of pages16
Journal经济研究
Issue number8
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2020

User-Defined Keywords

  • 全球经济
  • 公司投资
  • 中国进口
  • Global Economy
  • Corporate Investment
  • Chinese Imports

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