Research On The Impact Of Export Diversification On China’s Economic Growth

Since the reform and opening-up,especially since China’s entry into the WTO,China’s industrial production capacity has increased substantially,and now it has all the industrial categories of the United Nations Industrial Classification.At the same time,China’s export structure has become increasingly diversified.As of 2016,the average export product category of each prefecture-level city has risen to 1212,which has doubled compared to 2001,with an average annual growth rate of 4.9%.Export diversification has made important contributions to China’s economic growth.Since entering the new normal,the internal and external environment of China’s economic and trade development has been facing profound changes.The domestic economic growth is shifting and the regional development is unbalanced;the new round of technological revolution is in the ascendant abroad,and the risk of uncertainty is increasing.China’s economic growth is subject to internal and external constraints.In this context,exploring the impact of export diversification on China’s economic growth at the current stage based on the level of prefecture-level cities and further tapping the potential of China’s economic growth has important theoretical significance and practical value.Based on this,this paper focuses on the impact of export diversification on China’s economic growth,and attempts to answer the following questions: Why does export diversification can affect economic growth? What is the impact of export diversification on economic growth? Does this influence depend on a specific stage of development? Through what kind of transmission mechanism? What is the difference under different observation conditions? In order to solve the above questions,this paper selects 286 prefecture-level cities in China(excluding Hong Kong,Macao and Taiwan regions)as the observation samples,uses the "China Customs Import and Export Database" and "China City Database" to perform calculations,and conducts factual analysis,mechanism analysis and empirical analysis on the impact of China’s export diversification on economic growth from 2003 to 2016.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows.Fact analysis shows that: During the observation period,China’s export diversification has increased rapidly,and China’s economy has followed the characteristics of rapid growth.As the overall development speed of export diversification has slowed,economic growth has also shown a downward trend in growth.Export diversification has different characteristics due to differences in regions,cities,enterprises and products.(1)The export diversification level of the eastern region and central and southeastern region,which opened earlier to the outside world,is relatively high,but their development space is gradually saturated;The level of export diversification in the central region,the western region,the north region,and the southwest region,which are relatively slow opening to the outside world,is relatively low,but their development speed is relatively fast.(2)Similar to the characteristics of regional differences,cities with higher levels of development have higher levels of export diversification,but their growth rate has slowed down;cities with lower levels of development have lower levels of export diversification,but the development process is faster.(3)Private enterprises have the highest degree of export diversification and have been in rapid development;foreign-funded enterprises,state-owned and collective enterprises have relatively low levels of export diversification.(4)The export diversification level of semi-finished products under the intermediate goods category and consumer goods under the final products category is is relatively high,but the growth rate is slowing down;The export diversification level of components and parts under the intermediate goods category and capital goods under the final goods category is relatively low but increasing faster.The less technology-intensive the product,the higher the degree of export diversification,but the less growth potential.(5)The intensive margin is an important reason for the continuous expansion of export diversification,the extensive margin of export diversification is lower and more volatile.Mechanism analysis shows that:(1)Export diversification is compatible with the process of industrialization.In the early stage of industrialization,it’s the primary specialization of exports that promotes economic growth;in the middle of industrialization,it’s the export diversification drives economic growth;in the late stage of industrialization,it’s the high-level specialization of export that promotes economic growth.(2)The Intensive margin and the extensive margin are two manifestations of of export diversification to affect economic growth;Export diversification can have a positive impact on economic growth through three transmission mechanisms: capital accumulation,technological progress and industrial structure upgrading.(3)The impact of export diversification on China’s economic growth is heterogeneous.Based on the characteristics of the observed samples,this paper explains the internal logic of the differential impact of export diversification on China’s economic growth from four macro-to-micro perspectives: regional difference,urban development grade,enterprise nature and product types.Empirical analysis shows:(1)The results of nonlinear regression and the "U"-shaped turning point test show that China is still in the stage of export diversification to promote economic growth,and the turning point of the transition from export diversification to specialization has not yet come.(2)The linear regression results and the robustness and endogenous tests show that export diversification is an important factor in China’s economic growth,and this impact is mainly comes from the intensive marginal growth of export diversification.(3)The mediating effect model and its robustness test show that capital accumulation,technological progress and industrial structure upgrading are important channels through which export diversification affects China’s economic growth,and the capital accumulation plays a greater role.(4)The group regression results show that,(1)In terms of driving regional economic growth,the growth of export diversification is still the driving force for the economic growth in the three regions of the east,central and western regions,also in the northern region and the southwest region,however,the promotion effect has not shown in the central and southeastern region.(2)Export diversification is still an important factor in the economic growth of a large number of low and medium-level development cities,while the positive effect of high-level development cities’ export diversification are weakening.(3)The positive effect of private enterprise export diversification on regional economic growth is higher than that of state-owned and collective enterprises,the way that foreign-funded enterprises contribute to regional economic growth is the growth of export specialization.(4)From the perspective of the economic type of products,the export diversification’s growth of semi-finished products and components and parts under the intermediate products,and consumer goods under the final goods can promote economic growth,but this promoting effect is not reflected in the capital goods under the final goods.From the perspective of product technology intensity,with the increase of product technology content,export diversification has a stronger driving effect on economic growth.(5)Further threshold regression analysis based on grouping regression results shows that,the measurement results that take regional economic development level,production factor allocation efficiency and human capital cultivation as threshold variables still support China is in the stage of export diversification promoting economic growth;The regression of individual regions and cities into groups shows that export specialization promotes economic growth can be understood as a partial trade optimization trend.Accordingly,this article puts forward the following policy recommendations: On the one hand,we should continue to deepen the development process of export diversification,first,correctly grasp the development stage of export diversification,and expand the development space of export diversification;second,continue to promote the process of industrialization,and lay a solid foundation for the export diversification;the third is to improve the foreign trade early warning and service mechanism to reduce the uncertainty of export diversification.On the other hand,we should actively optimize the development direction of export diversification.One is to establish the pilots of export advanced specialization,and to encourage advantageous areas to try first;the second is to strengthen social innovation awareness and promote original technological progress;third,to focus on human capital cultivation,improve the endogenous driving force of economic growth.