The Impact Of Trade On China’s Manufacturing TFP Growth Based On The Analysis Of Different Types Of Trade

In2010, the Chinese share of world manufacturing output accounted for19.8percent of output. China has surpassed the United States as a manufacturing superpower, but the industry still faces many problems such as low labor productivity, low Industrial Output Value and weak technological innovation capability which restrict the shift from a big manufacturing country to a manufacturing power. Since the reform and opening up, China’s manufacturing industry has achieved rapid growth in both import and export trade. Since2007manufacturing capital goods’exports have exceeded manufacturing consumer goods’exports for the first time, and manufacturing capital good becomes the second largest export commodity type inferior to the intermediate good which means China’s manufacturing trade structure has achieved a certain degree of upgrading. Then how does the rapid growth of trade volume and upgrade of trade structure influence the technological progress of China’s manufacturing industry? In the context of the realization of the shift from a big manufacturing country to a manufacturing power, an analysis of international trade and trade structure’s effects on China’s manufacturing productivity growth and technological progress has important theoretical and practical significance.Based on DEA approach, this paper measured Malmquist productivity index and its decomposition index of China’s manufacturing from2002to2011. We found that the total factor productivity experienced an average annual growth of6.9%, and this growth mainly depended on the growth of technological progress while the technical efficiency experienced a decline of4.2%in the same period because of the decline of scale efficiency. On the above analysis, this paper established an industry panel data econometric model and conducted an empirical analysis of the impact of exports and imports on the manufacturing industry productivity. We found that exports had no significant influence on productivity growth while imports had significantly positive impacts on productivity growth. We also found that R&D investment significantly hindered TFP growth and technological progress while had no significant impact on technical efficiency. Capital contributed significantly to the growth of TFP and technical efficiency while had no significant impact on technological progress. Enterprise scale significantly contributed to TFP growth, technological progress and technical efficiency promotion We divided goods into capital goods, intermediate goods and consumer goods, and empirically found capital goods and intermediate goods exports had no significant influence on TFP while contributed significantly to technological progress and hindered technical efficiency. Moreover, imports of capital goods and intermediate goods contributed significantly to TFP and technical efficiency while significantly hindered technological advances.Regardless of consumer goods exports or imports, they had no significant influence on TFP, technological progress and technical efficiency.Therefore, to play a catalytic role of international trade on manufacturing technology advances, we must accelerate the export of high-tech capital goods and intermediate goods and regulate the processing trade for the rationalization of import trade.