提高出口退税能够“稳就业”和“稳外贸”吗?

近年来,全球贸易保护主义抬头加剧了各国之间的贸易摩擦。本文以中美贸易为例,探讨中国出口退税政策在稳就业、稳外贸以及应对贸易摩擦中的作用机制。首先基于1994-2020年季度数据发现:中国就业的波动较平稳;净出口则呈现高波动特征;中国就业和净出口呈现弱顺周期。这些周期特征与其他国家存在显著差异。其次构建了一个含有不完全金融市场和价格不完全传递的对称两国开放经济DSGE模型,数值模拟发现:在本国出口退税冲击和它国技术冲击下,模型能够较好地拟合中国就业和净出口的周期特征,其中财富效应和由贸易条件变化引起的支出转移效应是主要的内在传导机制。借助模型对中美贸易摩擦的反事实实验发现:中国单方面提高1%出口退税时,中国就业增长0.05%,净出口增长0.28%,呈现较强持续性,提高出口退税能够稳就业和稳外贸;当中国提高1%出口退税和美国提高1%进口关税时,中国就业增长0.03%,净出口增长0.16%,呈现较强持续性,勒纳中性不成立,此时出口退税在稳就业和稳外贸中的作用尽管有所削弱,但依然有效。

Can Increasing the Export Tax Rebate Stabilize Employment and Foreign Trade?

In recent years, trade protectionism has increased globally, exacerbating trade frictions between countries, such as those between China and the United States. To cope with these adverse effects, the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration of China have successively increased the export tax rebate for some products. Meanwhile, employment and foreign trade are major issues in China's economy. Therefore, exploring the effect of China's export tax rebate policy on employment and foreign trade is of great theoretical and practical significance. Taking Sino-US trade friction as an example, this paper examines the mechanism by which China's export tax rebate policy stabilizes employment and foreign trade and how it mitigates trade friction using dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model.First, this paper studies the cyclical characteristics of China's employment and net exports. Quarterly data from 1994 to 2020 show that employment is relatively stable. However, net exports are highly volatile. China's employment and net exports have weak procyclical characteristics that are significantly different from other countries and the simulation results of other DSGE models in the literature. Second, to explain the cyclical characteristics of China's employment and net exports, this paper constructs a symmetrical two-country open-economy DSGE model with an incomplete financial market and incomplete price pass-through. Using macro data from China and the United States to calibrate the model, the numerical simulation shows that the model better fits the cyclical characteristics of China's employment and net exports under the shock of domestic export tax rebates and other countries' technology shock. The wealth and expenditure transfer effects caused by the change in terms of trade are the main internal transmission mechanisms.To clarify the mechanism of the export tax rebate effect, this paper uses Sino-US trade friction to conduct a counterfactual experiment to explore whether increasing the export tax rebate can stabilize employment and foreign trade. The simulation shows that when China unilaterally increases its export tax rebate by 1%, employment increases by 0.05%, and net exports increase by 0.28% and then decrease gradually, showing strong persistence. Increasing the export tax rebate can stabilize employment and foreign trade. A 1% increase in both China's export tax rebate and the United States' import tariff increases employment in China by 0.03% and net exports by 0.16%, and then employment and net exports decrease gradually and show strong persistence. Lerner neutrality is not established. Although the effect of the export tax rebate in stabilizing employment and foreign trade is currently weakened, it remains effective. Therefore, China's export tax rebate policy not only completely offsets the adverse impact of other countries' tariff increased on China's employment and net exports, but also produces a positive net effect. Although the net effect of increasing the export tax rebate is small, it indeed helps stabilize employment and foreign trade. Furthermore, the Bayesian estimation method proves that this conclusion is robust.This paper makes two contributions to the literature. First, it expands the literature on the cyclical characteristics of China's employment and net exports. The two-country open-economy model in this paper not only explains these cyclical characteristics but also explores the internal mechanism of the effect of China's export tax rebate policy. Second, the two-country open-economy model can simulate and evaluate the effect of China's increasing export tax rebate on stabilizing employment and foreign trade in various circumstances.