The asymmetric effects of oil price changes on China’s exports: New evidence from a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model

China’s dependence on oil imports has greatly increased in recent years. Due to the rapid expansion of global trade, exporting plays an important role in the Chinese economy. This paper uses monthly data from January 2005 to April 2021 to examine the short- and long-term effects of oil price increases and decreases on China’s exports. Our empirical analyses are based on the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model, which can effectively capture asymmetric relations. The empirical results provide significant evidence of asymmetry, such that oil price increases have significantly larger effects than oil price decreases in the long term. Interestingly, we find that energy-intensive exports and some specific sectors (e.g., crude fertilizers, petroleum products, and organic chemicals) benefit from oil price increases. We also observe recent declines in the coal and coke sector following positive oil price shocks due to restrictions on coal consumption.