Export Slowdown and Domestic Market Integration:Evidence from the Commodity Market of China between 1999 and 2019
External circulation has played an important role in economic growth in China for a long time,especially after join-ing the WTO.However,the financial crisis in 2008 has profoundly changed the global environment.With sluggish global growth and weakened consumer demand,China's export growth has slowed down since 2008,and it even experienced nega-tive growth in the years 2015 and 2016.As the"decoupling"between China and the United States intensifies,coupled with heightened international geopolitical tensions,the pressure for a future decline in China's exports remains significant.The economic impacts of export slowdown in China deserve attention.This paper examines the impacts of export slowdown on domestic market integration using provincial panel data from 1999 to 2019 in China.In order to mitigate potential endogeneity concerns,this paper adopts a two-stage least squares(2SLS)approach.The results show that the slowdown in export will push and accelerate the process of market integration be-tween regions,and the construction of a unified national large market is a long process.This effect is especially manifested in coastal provinces,provinces with a high proportion of processing trade and a low proportion of state-owned economy.The ex-tended analysis also finds that rail freight volumes within a province and between provinces will increase significantly after ex-port decline in a province.This implies that regional market integration will be fostered.The results of this paper demonstrate that China needs to move toward structural adjustment and a balance between domestic and external demand.Building a uni-fied,open,and orderly competitive domestic market is an inherent requirement when the export slows down in China.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
