Research On The Export Of Chinese Cultural Products

Cultural goods are usually labeled with "cultural exceptions" and treated as special goods.Therefore,there are still disputes about whether free trade policy or protective trade policy should be applied for cultural goods,which is the research motivation of this paper.Based on the theory of home market effect,this paper analyzes the heterogeneity of cultural goods and explores the driving factors of Chinese cultural goods export.According to the research results,China's cultural goods market should be conditionally opened,and at the end of this paper,suggestions for the future development of Chinese cultural goods trade are provided.UNESCO defines Cultural Goods as “a consumer product that spreads ideas,symbols and lifestyles,which provides information and entertainment,which in turn forms a group identity and influences cultural behavior”.The low energy dissipation,high added value and the property of value transmission of the cultural industry have made the cultural goods' status in the global trade increasing year by year,and the promotion of cultural goods trade to the national economy has become increasingly prominent.Since the beginning of 2000,global trade in cultural goods has grown rapidly.Despite the setbacks during the 2008 financial crisis,cultural goods trade's growth remained strong and resilient.Especially after 2009,the global trade in cultural goods gradually recovered.China surpassed the United States in 2010 and became the world's largest exporter of cultural goods.In fact,not only China,but also developing countries including Asian countries(India,Turkey,Malaysia and so on)have become the main exporters of cultural goods,but does this mean that Asian countries are important cultural exporters?According to UNESCO's definition and division of cultural goods,cultural goods include not only creation-intensive cultural goods such as film,television,music,performances,books,newspapers(herein referred to as content-based cultural goods),but also carpets,textiles,wickers,gold,silver,jewelry,plastic decorations and other labor-intensive cultural goods(referred to as functional cultural goods).Obviously,content-based cultural goods are the main carrier of cultural output.So,for content-based cultural goods and functional cultural goods,which is the main players in global cultural goods trade?According to the trade data of the Creative Economy Database of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development,functional cultural goods accounted for 77% of the global cultural goods trade flows in 2015,which means that according to the current cultural goods definition standards,manufacturing-based cultural goods trade is the main flow of global cultural goods trade,and obviously,it has overwhelmed the trade of creative and copyrighted cultural goods.Of course,the current global trade in cultural goods is limited by most countries' protective trade policy for content-based cultural goods,so the cultural goods trade is mainly about the trade of functional cultural goods.The cultural attributes of cultural goods have led countries to maintain cultural exceptions for cultural goods.Content-based cultural goods like film and television,audio-visual and other content-based cultural goods have been subject to quotas,limits,tariffs and other restrictive protective policies.Therefore,these emerging economies,including China,export most of these functional cultural goods.In 2015,more than 90% of all cultural goods exported by China were functional cultural goods.Chinese content-based cultural goods were rarely exported to foreign countries.This shows that although China is a major exporter of cultural goods,it is still not a major exporter of culture.Even so,China has made great achievements in the field of cultural goods export.How is the status of China cultural goods export formed?Many scholars have studied the trade of Chinese cultural goods and tried to find the driving factors driving the export of Chinese cultural goods.However,the research on the heterogeneity of cultural goods is generally not deep and concise enough.The construction or foundation of the theoretical analysis framework is not solid or does not combine the special points of cultural goods with trade theory.Therefore,this thesis attempts to complete and fill this research,starting from the heterogeneity of cultural goods,based on the theory of home market effect,constructing a theoretical analysis framework,and empirically testing the theoretical derivation results.Cultural goods not only have the general economic characteristics of ordinary products,but also have heterogeneous characteristics that distinguish them from ordinary products because of cultural attributes.Through the analysis and summary of the characteristics of cultural goods,this paper summarizes the main economic characteristics of cultural goods as increasing returns to scale and network externalities.The increase in scale returns is consistent with the description of heterogeneous products in the home market effect theory.Network externalities are used to describe the general and special points of cultural goods.Therefore,the theoretical framework of cultural goods trade established in this paper is based on the theory of home market effect and incorporates the characteristics of network externalities of cultural goods.Because the theoretical analysis framework considers the network externalities of cultural goods,so the theoretical analysis framework of this paper should be called cultural goods network externalities trade theoretical analysis framework.The theoretical analysis framework of this paper gives the theoretical basis and verification relationship of the empirical test:(1)in the trade environment,there exist network externalities for cultural goods;(2)there exists home market effect for cultural goods export;(3)Cultural goods network externalities influence trade by strengthening home market effect.Subsequent empirical analysis revolves around these three theoretical relationships.Firstly,for the verification of network externalities for cultural goods,according to the theoretical relationship given by the theoretical analysis framework,the corresponding data is found,and the existence and existence form of network externalities for cultural goods are verified by the curve fitting method.The final result shows that in the trade environment,the network externalities of cultural goods do exist.The network externalities of cultural goods can directly affect the market demand,and the existing form is consistent with the existing network externalities research for other network products.The existence form of cultural goods network externalities follows the Zipf's law,and the function form is consistent with the Briscoe's law.Secondly,for the verification of the home market effect of Chinese cultural goods exports.According to the theoretical basis of home market effect verification,the econometric model that follows the original meaning of home market effect is derived,which is the impact of relative market size on relative exports.And according to the heterogeneity characteristics of cultural goods,the corresponding control variables and dummy variables are added,and appropriate measurement methods are selected according to the properties of the data for regression.The results of the total export of cultural goods show that there exists home market effect on the export of Chinese cultural goods.In addition to audio-visual cultural goods,all other kinds of cultural goods exports exist home market effect.And the regression results also show that the main factor driving the export of Chinese cultural goods is the labor resource.The cultural goods exported by China are mostly labor-intensive,indicating that the added value of Chinese cultural goods is not high and is still in the stage of low-end manufacturing.Finally,for the verification of the relationship between cultural goods network externalities and home market effect.By combining the results of the cultural goods network externalities curve fitting and the measurement model of the home market effect verification,the measurement model for verifying the relationship between cultural goods network externalities and the home market effect is given,and the cultural consumption data of each country required for verification is collected and selected.The regression method is based on the nature of the data.The regression results show that cultural goods network externalities will strengthen the home market effect,which means that cultural goods network externalities can directly influence the demand and promote the relative export of cultural goods.In addition to the above main research results,according to the investigation of relevant important control variables,this paper also draws other important conclusions.(1)foreign direct investments have not promoted relative exports;(2)Internet popularization and intellectual property protection play a significant positive correlation with the relative export of cultural goods;(3)for the export of content-based cultural goods,the driving conditions are more demanding.Since the theoretical basis of the research on the export of Chinese cultural goods is solid,the consideration of the heterogeneity of cultural goods is very thoughtful,so the credibility of the research results is significantly improved.The results of the study are basically optimistic about the future of Chinese cultural goods exports:First of all,cultural goods trade is in line with the new trade theory and the factor endowment theory for the interpretation of trade.The export of Chinese cultural goods is driven by China's market size and labor resource endowment.Therefore,even if China no longer has a labor advantage in the future,China also can form a competitive advantage of Chinese cultural goods because of the large market scale.As far as population is concerned,China is undoubtedly the largest market in the world,and with the improvement of China's economic level,consumption upgrading is inevitable,and the pursuit of the spiritual world corresponds to more demand for cultural goods.Therefore,as a country with a large market,the competitive advantage of cultural goods can be maintained.Secondly,the network externalities of cultural goods mean that the dissemination of cultural goods has the ability to spontaneously expand.Especially for content-based cultural goods,the speed of the outbreak is information cascade3 pattern,the impact of consumer information will gradually accelerate and gradually deepen.In the case that the creative content of cultural goods is sufficiently valuable,and the promotion channels are smooth,the network externalities characteristics of the cultural goods can accelerate the process.Therefore,the large demand in the local market can not only achieve the cost advantage of a region,but also push the network externalities of high-quality content to a new height and achieve greater demand.Then,with the upgrading of Chinese cultural goods and the continuous birth of high-quality content,it is only a matter of time before China's high-quality content and cultural goods go abroad.Finally,China's cultural resources endowment is very strong.Many of the creative inspirations for the production of content-based cultural goods come from traditional culture,and China has a long history and a great civilization.It can be said that cultural materials are vast and inexhaustible.This is a huge wealth and production advantage for the creation and export of cultural goods in China.Although the outlook is optimistic,the research in this paper also reveals that some serious problems about the export of Chinese cultural goods,which need to be caused alert and to be changed.Otherwise,the prospect of optimism may only be the prospect and cannot be a reality.First of all,from the perspective of the structure of Chinese cultural goods exports,China's content-based cultural goods are rarely exported,accounting for under 10% of total exports,but the proportion of content-based cultural goods in the total export of international cultural goods is 38%.It shows that the structural imbalance of China's cultural goods exports is very serious.There are two reasons for this:(1)The current domestic content culture consumption is far below the international level;(2)The domestic content culture industry still cannot meet the current national demand for content culture consumption.Of course,China's cultural consumption and industry are developing rapidly,but because of the low starting point,there is still a long way to go.Secondly,the cultural goods exported by China are not closely related to China's cultural heritage.The reasons are as follows:(1)The cultural goods exported by China are mainly functional cultural goods,and there are not many cultural contents attached;(2)The current international society is a society dominated by Western cultural and linguistic systems,so the cultural goods exported are inclined to western culture preferences.Therefore,it is necessary to start from the protection of local culture and traditional culture and deepen the "Chinese cultural imprint" of exporting cultural goods.Finally,the intensity of intellectual property protection has a significant positive effect on exports,but compared to developed countries,China's intellectual property protection environment is still much worse.In particular,China is currently in the transition period of cultural goods,from the transition from functional cultural goods to content-based cultural goods,and the poor protection of intellectual property rights cannot provide favorable support.The deep construction of the intellectual property protection environment is important and urgent.In summary,based on the heterogeneous characteristics of cultural goods,and the theory of home market effect,this paper has constructed a cultural goods network externalities trade theoretical analysis framework,which gives the theoretical basis and theoretical relationship of empirical test,and empirically analyzes the driving factors of Chinese cultural goods export,and sums up the success reasons and structural defects of Chinese cultural goods export,and finally give summary research conclusions and corresponding policy implications.