Could Industrial Automation promote Quality Upgrading of Imported Intermediate Products?Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing En-terprises
This paper empirically analyzes the impact of industrial automation on the quality of imported intermediate products of firms using matched data from the China Customs Database and the China Industrial Enterprises Database from 2002 to 2013.It is found that industrial automation has a sig-nificant positive effect on the quality of imported intermediate products,that is,there exists a significant"product upgrading effect".According to the heterogeneity analysis,industrial automation has a significant"product upgrading effect"in capital-and technology-intensive industries,while it has a"labor substitution effect"in labor-intensive industry.In addition,the positive impact of industrial automation on the quality of imported in-termediate products is greater for firms in monopolistic industries and in areas with better business environment.Compared with semi-finished prod-ucts,industrial automation is more likely to promote the quality of imported raw materials and components.The mechanism analysis shows that in-dustrial automation can improve the quality of imported intermediate products through innovation effect,efficiency effect and product quality effect.Further study finds that the improvement of imported intermediate products quality is mainly caused by the extensive marginal change,while the in-tensive marginal change is not significant.Moreover,there is a"linkage effect"between industrial automation and imported intermediate products quality,which jointly promote the improvement of enterprise value chain status.This paper enriches the study of the role of industrial automation in firms upgrading and transformation from the perspective of the quality of imported intermediate products,and provides policy insights on how China can better utilize the opportunities of industrial automation to improve the position of firms in value chain.
万方数据
维普
