Imported Intermediates And Manufacturing Enterprises Productivity From The Perspective Of Heterogeneity

The development of reform and opening up for more than 40 years has made China a veritable trading power.In this development process,China has not only deeply participated in the global value chain system,but also promoted the development of its own manufacturing industry by virtue of the technology spillover effect brought by trade.However,China is not a trade power,and processing trade still occupies a high proportion in China's trade system.Under the traditional development mode driven by the labor factor,the lack of enterprise innovation ability has become an important issue that restricts the development of China's manufacturing industry.As an important part of promoting economic development,enhancing the ability to innovate and improve total factor productivity of manufacturing enterprise is indispensable for realizing transformation and upgrading.It is also an important way to promote Chinese manufacturing from the low end of the global value chain to the middle and high end.However,at present,there is still a big gap between Chinese and developed countries about the independent innovation capability.Importing high-quality intermediate products of developed countries are considered to be reliable ways for developing countries to break through the limits of technological standards.However,import intermediates need to pay a series of fixed costs and sedimentation costs.Theoretical research suggests that only high-productivity companies can overcome these additional costs to achieve imports,that is,the “self-selection” of imports.This conclusion has been verified by trade data of many developed countries.So is there a “self-selection” of intermediate imports in developing countries like ours?Based on the China Employer-Employee Survey(CEES),this paper empirically study the “self-selection effect” of imported intermediates in China's manufacturing enterprises by using heterogeneous corporate trade theory.Firstly,this paper uses the approximate total factor productivity of the lag phase as the independent variable,and uses the dummy variable of the enterprise to import the intermediate product as the dependent variable.Through the regression of the two,it is found that there is a selfselection of the intermediate product import in the manufacturing industry as a whole.That is,high-productivity companies are more inclined to import intermediate goods.Secondly,this paper uses group regression to further analyze whether self-selection effect is applicable in all enterprises in China.The empirical results show that the selfselection effect of intermediate product imports is different in heterogeneous enterprises: from the perspective of ownership,there is no obvious self-selection effect in state-owned enterprises,but the self-selection effect is very significant in non-state-owned enterprises;from the perspective of regional heterogeneity,there is a self-selection effect of imported intermediate goods in the eastern region,and self-selection effect in the central region is not obvious;from the perspective of whether or not to engage in export activities,the self-selection effect of export enterprises is more significant,but the self-selection effect of importing intermediate products in non-export enterprises is not obvious.Based on the results of empirical analysis,this paper proposes the following policy recommendations: First,we must further expand the import of high-quality intermediate products,give full play to the technology spillover effects,quality effects and competitive effects of high-quality intermediate products,to enhance The total factor productivity of Chinese enterprises.Secondly,further deepen the reform of stateowned enterprises,breaking the barriers to the flow of elements in state-owned enterprises,and then exert technological spillover effects in state-owned enterprises,and at the same time further encourage and guide non-state-owned enterprises to promote the ability of independent innovation,avoiding technological upgrading of non-state-owned enterprises is limited by foreign imports.Finally,promote regional coordination of imports of intermediate goods,expand the scale of imports of intermediate goods in the central region,and encourage the import of high-quality intermediate goods in the east.