| Since joining the WTO 16 years ago,China has achieved a GDP per capita from 8,717 yuan to 53,980,with a growth rate of 12.1%annually.Besides the WTO’s multilateral trading system,there is a growing trend of bilateral or regional economic and trade cooperation that connect each country more tightly.Under the circumstances of a worldwide regional economic cooperation,China has followed the trend and signed the regional Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN.Under the framework of CAFTA(China-ASEAN Free Trading Agreement),the total value of bilateral trade increased from 54.77 billion dollars in 2002,to 472.16 in 2015,with an annual growth rate of 18.1%.CAFTA has made up a larger trade and economic zone,which offers an opportunity for multilateral markets to achieve economies of scale.This paper attempts to analyze the influence CAFTA has on Chinese manufacturing firms’ export and innovation,focusing on innovation investment and output.It also discusses whether regional trade liberalization can solve the predicament in the economic transformation.In Chapter 1,we introduce the current situation of China’s trade and the development of CAFTA,along with our research ideas and innovation.In Chapter 2 we review the relevant literature.We find that most papers on CAFTA are descriptions of viewpoints,or simulation calculations based on Static General-Equilibrium Model and Gravity Model.On trade,export,technology upgrading and innovation,Melitz and Yeaple unprecedentedly introduce New New Trade Theory,while the followers empirically measure technology by endogenous TFP,or simply start the research with innovation investment(technology investment).Chapter 3 introduces Bilateral Trade Liberalization model,which solves exporting cutoff and technology adoption cutoff.In Chapter 4,we do the empirical analysis from two perspectives.On innovation investment we use spending on technology as a measure index,and test a sample of 9,068 observations selected from Tariff Download Facility from WTO and China Industrial Enterprise Database.The empirical analysis is then expanded regarding to innovation output.The output is measured by patent innovation,and a sample of 6,462 observations is selected from Tariff Download Facility from WTO and PATSTAT.The result is concluded and policy advice is given in Chapter 5.The main conclusions of our work is as follows.The tariff reduction of CAFTA trade cooperation has significantly promoted the exports and technology adoption of Chinese manufacturing firms.Specifically,the export and technology adoption has been greatly promoted for firms in the middle range of productivity,but for the other manufacturing firms,only exports have been promoted,the impact on technology adoption behavior still remains ambiguous.In addition,we also found that trade liberalization has a different impact on the patent innovation of firms in the trade area.Specifically,the exporters have higher patent innovation capabilities.It is estimated that the growth rate of innovation of the exporters is 4.5 times higher than that of the non-exporters. |
