Changes And International Comparison Of China’s Service Trade Cost

In the context of the growing international and domestic service economy,trade in services is often seen as a "panacea" for solving various problems in trade development.However,the important "forward" variable-service trade cost has always been regarded as an exogenous variable by the traditional trade theory,so it was excluded from the theoretical model,while the "background" variables,such as competitiveness measurement and the discussion about economic benefits of service trade,are active in the field of trade in service.With the further deepening of the international division of labor,trade in services has gradually become a white-hot competition zone of international trade,and the importance of service trade cost is also increasingly apparent.Therefore,unlike the previous literature,this paper will build a complete analytical framework from the perspective of service trade cost to understand the process of liberalization and the mode of specialization of service trade in China,its status in the international arena as well.In order to understand the changes and its international standing of China’s service trade cost,based on Anderson multilateral general equilibrium reconstruction model,this paper measures the bilateral service trade cost and unilateral service trade cost between China and 19 trading partners in the period from 2000 to 2014.Then we uses the aggregate trade cost calculation formula to learn the overall level of bilateral service trade cost and unilateral service trade cost in China to analyze its international standing.The results show that: Firstly,the bilateral service trade cost between China and its trading partners has not shown a significant downward trend,and even shown a slight rising trend with some trading partners.Secondly,China’s unilateral service trade cost also did not show a clear downward trend,and the export service trade cost to some trading partners has increased.Thirdly,during the sample period,China’s aggregate bilateral service trade cost and aggregate unilateral service trade cost both increased slightly.Fourthly,putting China’s bilateral service trade cost and unilateral service trade cost in global for comparative analysis,China’s aggregate bilateral service trade cost and aggregate unilateral service trade cost are both higher than the global level,the average level of high-income countries and even the average level of low-income countries.Moreover,with the development of economy,the gap is showing a growing trend.Last but not least,combining service trade cost and service trade volume,the reduction of service trade cost has a positive effect on the growth of trade,but it is only one of the factors that affect the volume of trade.Based on theoretical analysis of the influencing factors of China’s bilateral service trade cost and unilateral service trade cost,the empirical results on basis of multinational panel data and system generalized method of moments GMM show hat different factors have differences effect on China’s bilateral service trade cost and unilateral service trade cost.Specifically speaking,there are significant negative correlation between one-period lag of bilateral service trade cost(unilateral service trade cost),service trade restriction index,cultural distance and bilateral service trade costs(unilateral service trade cost),while the per capita income gap has positive effect on both of them,while the influence of distance factors and trade profitability on bilateral service trade costs and unilateral service trade cost are different Then to further reduce China’s service trade cost,and thus promote the healthy and sustainable development of the service economy,according to the theoretical analysis and the results of the empirical test,combined with the actual situation of China’s service trade development as well,we put forward relevant suggestions for reference.