A Study on the Impact of Trade Policy Uncertainty on China's Export Upgrading
LI Hongbing1, SUN Litang1, WEN Lei2
1. School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China; 2. School of Economics, Capital University of Economics and Business, Beijing 100070, China
Abstract As one of the most important bilateral relations in the world, Sino-US economic and trade frictions and the uncertainty of trade policy have aroused concerns about the transformation and upgrading of China's exports. Based on the enterprise-product level micro data from 2000 to 2013 and the industry level data from 1999 to 2019, this paper uses the double difference model to identify the effect of the decline of trade policy uncertainty on the export upgrading of China's manufacturing industry. The study shows that the decline of trade policy uncertainty significantly promotes the export upgrading of enterprises measured by export technology complexity, and has a positive effect on the export technology complexity of coastal enterprises, small and medium-sized micro-enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises. Based on the research of influence mechanism, it is found that the reduction of trade policy uncertainty can increase the complexity of export technology by encouraging enterprise innovation and alleviating financing constraints. Furthermore, the decline of trade policy uncertainty can also significantly promote the increase of export technology complexity of the industry through downstream industrial linkages, for labor-intensive industries, capital-intensive industries and industries with high and low market concentration. However, for high market concentration industries, the decline of trade policy uncertainty will restrain the increase of export technology complexity through upstream industrial linkages, while the impact on low market concentration industries is the opposite.
2022, Vol. 39 
