Research On Pricing-to-Market Behaviors Of Chinese Export Enterprises In The Perspective Of Microscopic Enterprises

Exchange rate is an important factor affecting the development of trade.Over the past ten years,the appreciation of the RMB has always accompanied the rapid development of China's export trade.In recent two years,the RMB has a clear tendency of devaluation while the scale of the development of export trade has actually decreased,which is contrary to the expectation of the exchange rate theory.For this phenomenon,Krugman put forward the concept of "Pricing to Market(PTM)",pointing out that the exporting enterprises conducted strategic pricing in the face of exchange rate fluctuations.In order to maintain the stability of market share,the exporting enterprises change the domestic export prices to offset changes in foreign currency prices caused by exchange rate fluctuations.In addition,the strategic pricing behavior of export enterprises can reflect the export pricing ability and export competitiveness of enterprises.Therefore,exploring the impact of RMB exchange rate fluctuations on the pricing behavior of Chinese exporters can help correctly judge the pricing power and export competitiveness of Chinese exporters,which is of great practical significance for the current that RMB continues to marketization and internationalization and China's export trade is facing a difficult period of transition and upgrading.In this study,we distinguished between general trade and processing trade and carried out empirical analysis based on the micro-data of industrial enterprises databases and customs database from 2000 to 2010.The results are shown as follows:Firstly,the exchange rate has a positive effect on the export pricing and presents a slight overshoot behavior under the general trade mode.The exchange rate transfer is incomplete under the mode of processing trade.Secondly,the characteristics of enterprises have a significant impact on the export pricing behavior of enterprises,such as debt ratio,firm size,capital labor ratio,subsidies as well as ownership.Thirdly,the regression analysis of HS8 bit-commodity level and HS2 bit-code industry level show that the exchange rate fluctuations have no significant effect on most of the pricing of our country's export commodities.In contrast,the general trade shows a stronger PTM profile than the processing trade in terms of product variety and quantity.Fourthly,no matter there is in general trade or processing trade,few high-end manufacturing goods presents PTM behavior and the overall average rates of exchange rates are relatively high.This indicates that Chinese exports are at the bottom of the value chain with low overall technical content and there is not enough room for price adjustment in the face of unfavorable exchange rate effects.On the basis of the regression results,this study puts forward corresponding policy recommendations at the macro and micro levels,regarding the financial reform,exchange rate regime,risk avoidance and corporate financing.These policy recommendations may promote China's export trade to pass the period of transformation and upgrading faster and better.