Agglomeration,Networks And Export:Micro-evidence From China

External location factors have particularly important effects on the firm’s exports,especially when the firm unable to effectively adjust the trade costs and obtain market information.Focusing on the correlation between agglomeration and export,a growing literature can be roughly divided into two types according to the subject of agglomeration behavior: industry agglomeration and firm agglomeration.Three clear concerns emerge.First,existing literature about industry agglomeration ignore the different effects on firm’s export among other industries(urbanization economies).Second,existing literature about firm agglomeration focus on neighboring exporters which help potential exporter to solve informal trade barriers such as incomplete information.Third,existing literature also emphasizes that geographical proximity of firms is a necessary condition for spreading information spillovers.In fact,three points need to be stressed: First,there are cumulative cycle effects between vertically related industries,the effects of upstream and downstream agglomeration(industry agglomeration)on export are different;Second,neighboring importers agglomeration(import agglomeration)also share their overseas business networks with potential exporter to establish connection with the destination countries;Third,subsidiaries can obtain the destination information from the local exporters agglomeration(remote agglomeration)and shares with other subsidiaries through the cross-regional information networks within firm.Therefore,do industry agglomeration,import agglomeration and remote agglomeration affect the firm’s export through the urban production network,urban information network and cross-regional information network? The answers to these questions will improve and expand the mechanism of agglomeration on exports in theory,as well as provide a reference for the trade and industrial policies in reality.Based on the latest focus of the agglomeration theory on export,CIFD and CCTS are used in this paper to empirically estimate the effects of urban production network,urban information network and cross-regional information network built by industry agglomeration,import agglomeration and remote agglomeration on firm’s export activities.For industry agglomeration,we find that vertical agglomeration only affects the extensive margin,among which the upstream agglomeration effect is positive,and the downstream one is negative.In particular,the vertical industrial agglomeration has stronger effects than the horizontal one on the extensive margin.We further decompose the effects into structure effects and scale effects;examine the impacts of agglomeration of different types of firms(eg.export vs.non-export firms,state-owed vs.foreign-owned firms);and compare the impacts of agglomeration across different firms,industries and regions.For import agglomeration,we find that neighboring importers share their overseas business networks with firms,helping potential exporter to establish connection with the destination countries and increasing the probability of potential exporter entering market.Further analysis show that these information spillovers are differed along a number of dimensions including the information receiver(the potential exporter)and the information content(the specific commodity information).There are differences in the trade mode and business background between the importer,which makes the externalities released by different types of neighboring imports are not the same.In addition,the next period impact of neighboring imports on the firm’s export is mainly reflected in the export sales.For remote agglomeration,this paper find that subsidiaries can obtain the destination information from the local exporters agglomeration(remote agglomeration)and shares with other subsidiaries through the cross-regional information networks within firm,then increasing export sales of the subsidiary.Further analysis show that this information spillover is differentiated by the heterogeneity of the information receiver(export subsidiaries),the transmission channel(cross-regional information networks)and the information contents(market information in destination countries).In addition,only when the density of nonlocal exporters is in a moderate range,the remote information spillover can significantly promote the subsidiary’s export.Our research framework as follows: First,arise questions based on the research background: the second chapter sorts out and summarizes the relevant literatures based on the keywords of "agglomeration" and "export".On the premise of affirming the fruitful achievements of the existing literatures,point out that there are three issues in the fields that need to be addressed.Second,analyze the problem by means of agglomeration theory: the third chapter examine the effects of urban production network built by industry agglomeration on the firm’s export;the fourth chapter examine the effects of urban information network built by import agglomeration on the firm’s export;the fifth chapter examine the effects of cross-regional information network built by remote agglomeration on the the firm’s export.By focusing on identify the spillover effects of three types of agglomeration,we get three core chapter of this paper.Third,solve problems through policy suggestions: the sixth chapter summarizes the empirical results of this paper,puts forward the corresponding policy suggestions and points out the future research direction.