Is environmental labeling certification a “green passport” for firm exports in emerging economies? Evidence from China

As the demand for more environmentally friendly products continues to increase, environmental label certification (ELC), as a voluntary environmental practice (VEP), has become a commonly used strategy by firms responding the green demands of the international market. While ELC is playing an increasingly important role in global trade, how ELC affects firms’ exports, especially how it affects the exports of those firms in emerging economies, remains unknown. This study explores the impact of ELC on firms’ exports. Insights are provided from resource-based views (RBV) by analysing China's A-share listed manufacturing firms to estimate the impact of China's ELC on exports. Our empirical results show that ELC can promote firms’ exports, because ELC emphasizes firms to reduce pollutant from the source, thereby, brings about cost advantage and green product differentiated advantage to boost high-quality exports. Using a series of robustness tests, we provide corroborating evidence for our hypotheses. The export-enhancing effect of ELC is impacted by the institutional context of emerging economies, as specialized market intermediaries and greater openness to the global market strengthen the export-enhancing effect of ELC. This research not only contributes to the literature, but also provides a reference for policy-makers and managers in using ELC to develop green trade.     

技术创新对中国汽车出口的影响实证研究

出口能力是衡量一国产业国际竞争力的重要指标,研究制约我国汽车出口的因素,寻求提升我国汽车产业国际竞争力的途径,对促进产业的长远发展具有重要意义。对我国汽车业上市公司的面板数据进行多元回归,研究技术创新对我国汽车出口的影响,并对主要乘用车和商用车企业分析结果进行比较,可得出乘用车企业技术创新人员投入强度和资金投入总量对汽车出口有显著正影响、商用车企业技术创新各项指标对出口均无显著影响的结论。     

Trade patterns and institutional change in East Asia

We investigate how trade patterns – institutionally intensive exports (IIX) – affect institutional quality in East Asia compared to the rest of the world, and whether the effect changed due to the Asian financial crisis. To examine this, we use panel data of 117 countries for the period 1988–2007. Our fixed effect model estimation reveals that the effect of IIX on institutional quality is negative and significant for East Asia, while the effect is insignificant for the rest of the world. The negative effect in East Asia is more pronounced for the five East Asian countries that were strongly affected by the crisis – South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand – than for other East Asian countries. Furthermore, our results reveal that the negative effect for East Asia does not change significantly after the crisis, both in the short and long term, and that improvement in institutional quality after the crisis is not different from that of the rest of the world. This suggests that the crisis had no significant impact on East Asia's institutional quality or on the effects of IIX on institutional quality.     

全要素生产率演进、比较优势转型与出口减速

利用DEA方法下的M-L指数测算了资源环境约束下各省全要素生产率演进以及效率改进和技术进步指数，基于2004—2014年我国30个省份数据的面板门限回归，重点考察了效率改进和技术进步在经济发展水平门限前后对出口的作用变化。研究表明：对于经济水平欠发达的地区，技术进步作用不显著，效率改进是促进出口的重要要素来源；当经济发展突破门限后，效率改进和技术进步同时呈现对出口增长的强劲促进作用，而忽视两者间的协同作用可能是当前出口减速的重要原因之一。此外，人口红利与外商直接投资作用式微，社会保障等制度因素作用增强。随着我国传统比较优势弱化和东西部经济差距不断扩大，根据地区经济情况，重视推进全要素生产率演进，有步骤地推动传统要素红利向“人才红利”、“制度红利”等新型比较优势的转型升级，是实现我国出口可持续增长的关键。     

On the way out: Government revenues from fossil fuels in Australia

Australia is moving from a fossil fuel-dominated energy mix to one that is increasingly powered by solar and wind. Fossil fuel exports are also likely to decline given their poor compatibility with the net zero emission targets of key trading partners. There is the potential for a variety of new exports of zero carbon energy and products to emerge. This paper reviews implications of the ongoing energy transition for government revenues from fossil fuel extraction and use and discusses policy options in response. It concludes that the transition heightens the need for efficient government revenue-raising mechanisms across the economy. Among the possible reforms, this paper reviews the potential for Australia's corporate income tax to be reoriented towards the taxation of above-normal profits via an allowance for corporate equity approach. Other revenue-raising options that are discussed include carbon pricing, electronic road user pricing, wider use of progressive royalties, the use of industry levies as applied in Australia's agricultural sector, and the generation of revenue from government co-investments.     

Officials' Foreign Experience and Firms' Exports: Evidence from China

This study examines how the foreign experience of local officials affects firms' exports in China. Using a matched sample from 2000 to 2012, we found that the foreign experience of municipal Party secretaries had a significant impact on the promotion of firms' exports, especially for private firms. This positive impact was more pronounced when officials went abroad at a younger age, stayed abroad for a longer period, returned to China for a longer time, and had greater promotion incentives. We found that officials' foreign experience helped to mitigate the negative impact of institutional distance and provided firms with better access to export subsidies, both of which could promote exporting. There was also a complementary effect when officials and executives both had foreign experience. Overall, our study provides some insights into the economic outcomes of officials' foreign experience and sheds light on the export performance of Chinese firms.     

British exports and foreign tariffs: Insights from the Board of Trade's foreign tariff compilation for 1902

This research note contributes to the debate over whether British exports were elastic to foreign tariffs before the First World War. In doing so, this study is the first to make econometric use of the commodity- and country-disaggregated foreign tariff data that Britain's Board of Trade compiled for the year 1902. Contrary to previous literature, British exports were indeed elastic to foreign tariffs across a range of manufactured commodities, with a conservative estimate of the elasticity being 3.1, which is not low by modern standards. Counterfactually, if foreign countries had emulated Britain's policy of free trade in manufactures in 1902, a partial-equilibrium estimate is that British exports would have been 57 per cent higher. If the trade-liberalizing trend of the mid-nineteenth century persisted into the late-nineteenth century, then much of the late-Victorian deceleration of British exports would have been avoided.     

The effect of the digital economy on services exports competitiveness and ternary margins

In the era of the digital economy, improving the level of information and communications technology (ICT) development is an important measure for achieving the high-quality development of the services exports. This study constructs a comprehensive development index for the digital economy based on the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development Statistics Database (UCTADstat) to calculate the services exports competitiveness of 75 countries (regions) around the world from 2010 to 2019 and conducts ternary margin decomposition. The study empirically verifies that the digital economy promotes the competitiveness of services exports, not only driving intensive growth of quantity margin and price margin but also enhances the expansion growth of category margin. Heterogeneity analysis reveals that the effect of the digital economy on improving low- and middle-income countries' services exports competitiveness and industries with low ICT intensity is more significant than that of high-income countries and high ICT-intensity industries. The impact of the digital economy on the ternary margin of countries’ different income levels and ICT-intensity sample groups exhibits differentiated estimation results. The conclusions of this study provide novel explanations regarding the effects of the digital economy in improving services exports competitiveness and new perspectives and evidence for strategic policymaking.     

The role of unit labor costs in African manufacturing investment and export performance

Several studies have pointed out that manufacturing wages are relatively higher in African countries than in other countries at similar levels of development, and that this contributes to the continent's lower levels of manufacturing competitiveness. This paper derives unit labor costs (ULCs)—average wages relative to productivity—for two-digit manufacturing sectors across a sample of 79 developed and developing countries, including 13 African countries, over the 1990–2015 period. We benchmark the ULCs to China and estimate the relationship between relative ULCs and manufacturing sector investment rates and export performance. We find that relative ULCs have a smaller association with exports in Africa relative to other developing regions. There is some evidence that investment responds to changes in relative ULCs in Africa; however, the estimated effects are smaller than in the full sample. Further, we find that for Africa, the level of labor productivity has a quantitatively stronger and more robust association with manufacturing performance than the level of real wages. The results have important implications for industrial policy in African countries.