Research On The Impact Of Trade Policy Uncertainty On Firms' Export Behavior

In recent years,with the series of international political and system adjustments represented by Brexit and Trump being elected as the President of the United States,the wave of anti-globalization has intensified,and the trade policy uncertainty has become an important issue for export firms.In order to understand the role of trade policy uncertainty in firm's export decision-making,this paper systematically reviews the domestic and foreign literatures on trade policy uncertainty and firms' export decision-making.On this basis,we introduce trade policy uncertainty into the two-factor heterogeneous-firm model with productivity and quality,study the mechanism and consequences of its influence on firms' export decision-making,and expand the application scope of heterogeneous firms trade theory.In empirical research,this paper uses the merging data of China's industrial enterprise database and customs import and export database from 2000 to 2006.Taking China-U.S.trade as an example,it empirically examines the firms' export behavior with intensive margin and extended margin under the influence of trade policy uncertainty.The results show that:(1)The rise of trade policy uncertainty is not conducive to firms entering the export market,and the decline of trade policy uncertainty is conducive to firms entering the export market.(2)The rise of trade policy uncertainty inhibits the growth of firms' average export value and export product varieties,but the decline of trade policy uncertainty will promotes both.The effect of the appied tariff rate is the same as that.(3)In terms of firms' heterogeneity,the effect of productivity distribution,heterogeneous fixed export costs and caliber is positive.The more decentralized the distribution of productivity,the greater the increase in firms' average export value and export product varieties.The greater the incentive for higher productivity brought about by overcoming the fixed export costs,the greater the increase in firms' average export value and export product categories.The greater the caliber,the greater the increase in firms' export value and export product categories.(4)In terms of segmented sample,trade policy uncertainty has a greater impact on newcomers and exiters,and less impact on surviving firms.With regard to the expansion of firms' average export value,trade policy uncertainty has a greater impact on state-owned enterprises,collective enterprises and Chinese-foreign cooperative enterprises,and less impact on private enterprises,its impact on other foreign-funded enterprises is on average.There is no significant difference in the impact of trade policy uncertainty on capital-intensive firms and labor-intensive firms.With regard to the expansion of firms' export product varieties,trade policy uncertainty has less impact on domestic-funded enterprises,and a greater impact on foreign-funded enterprises,it has less impact on capital-intensive firms than labor-intensive firms.(5)The influence of trade policy uncertainty on the expansion of the firms' exports is mainly achieved through intensive margin.It provides reference for firms to deal with the trade policy uncertainty brought by anti-globalization and emerging trade protectionism.