Global FTA Network Embedding and Chinese Firms'Export Technological Complexity Improvement
Regional trade agreements represented by free trade agreements(FTAs)are booming and actively lead-ing and joining high-level FTAs has become an important path for countries to speed up global economic and trade ex-changes.In this context,China has listed the FTA as a key focus of China's high-level opening-up.The 14th Five-Year Plan points out that the free trade zone upgrading strategy will be implemented to build a high-standard free trade zone net-work for the world;the report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China further proposes that China should expand the high-standard free trade zone network for the world.Therefore,at the new development stage,it is of great theoretical and practical significance to explore how the construction of a global FTA network affects the de-velopment of international trade and its realization path for promoting high-level opening-up.This paper examines the ef-fect and mechanism of the embedding degree of Chinese firms in the global FTA network on the technological complexity of their exports.Firstly,this paper constructs a theoretical model that includes the global FTA network embedding and the technical complexity of export and deduces its mechanism.Secondly,this paper uses social network analysis to build a global FTA network.Based on the data of Chinese firms from 2002 to 2016,this paper empirically tests the impact of Chinese firms'embedding in the global FTA network on the technical complexity of their export.This paper finds that the FTA network embedding affects the technical complexity of export mainly through enhancing the market competition faced by firms and promoting the diversification of imported intermediates and technology spillover.Finally,heterogene-ity is analyzed at the firm and product levels.The conclusions of this paper are as follows.In general,embedding in the global FTA network can significantly im-prove the export technology complexity of Chinese firms.The mechanism analysis shows that the improvement in firms'embedding degree in the global FTA network can enhance the technical complexity of firms'export by enhancing the mar-ket competition faced by firms and promoting the diversification of firms'import intermediates and technology spillover mechanism.The heterogeneity analysis shows that the higher the degree of global FTA network embedding,the more beneficial to improve the export technology complexity of non-state-owned firms,general trade firms,firms in the eastern region,and low-tech products.The possible marginal contributions of this paper are as follows.Firstly,this paper adopts the social network analy-sis to comprehensively analyze the global FTA network.Existing studies focus on unilateral or bilateral FTA participa-tion in the national dimension,ignoring the cross-complex global FTA network.The cross-complex global FTA network reflects the opening to the outside world more truly with the theme of international trade agreements and provides a more intuitive and comprehensive perspective for research on FTA.Secondly,this paper provides a theoretical framework and empirical evidence for the trade quality improvement effect of FTA networks from a micro perspective.Most existing studies focus on the impact of FTA signing on the export quality of contracting countries at the macro level,and few stud-ies explore the impact of firms'embedding in the FTA network on the technical complexity of firms'export from the per-spective of firms,the most basic subjects participating in international trade.This paper introduces the global FTA net-work and the technical complexity of firms'export into the heterogeneous firm model,and builds a theoretical framework on how the global FTA network embedding affects the technical complexity of Chinese firms'export.It further conducts an empirical evaluation of how the embedding of the global FTA network affects the technical complexity of firms'export and its mechanism.From the perspective of firms,this paper enriches research on the FTA network and international trade.Thirdly,this paper further analyzes the mechanism of the global FTA network's effect on the technical complexity of firms'export from the perspectives of enhancing the market competition faced by firms and promoting the diversifica-tion of imported intermediates and technology spillover.Therefore,it provides theoretical and path support for exploring the role of the global FTA network in promoting the development of international trade.
Global FTA NetworkTechnical Complexity of Firm's ExportSocial Network Analysis
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NSTL
万方数据
