Theme: Indirect Export Advantages

Guest Speaker: Qun Bao (Nankai University)

Time:  Thursday, June 6, 2024, 10:00am-11:15am

Venue: #Tencent Conference: 279-689-724

Organizer: Department of Economics

Guest Bio:

  Qun Bao is a professor at the School of Economics, Nankai University, with research interests in economic openness, foreign investment and economic development. He has been selected as one of the young scholars in the National Major Talent Project of the Ministry of Education, and one of the “Hundred Young Discipline Leaders” of Nankai University; he has presided over the major projects of the National Social Science Program and the surface projects of the National Natural Science Program; he has published more than one hundred papers in the domestic and international journals such as China Social Science, Economic Research, and Management World. He has been awarded the Outstanding Scientific Research Award of Colleges and Universities under the Ministry of Education, the An Zijie International Trade Research Award, and other academic awards.

Synopsis：

  With increasingly complex domestic production network relationships, export behavior can build indirect export advantages through domestic customer-supplier supply chain relationships. Based on customer-supplier data of Chinese listed firms from 2009 to 2016, the study finds that (1) indirect export advantages significantly increase the probability of firms' new entry into export markets, confirming the typical fact of switching from indirect to direct exporting, and that export identity switching is mainly manifested in small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) with poor exporting capabilities of their own and in industries with stronger exporting intentions; (2) indirect productivity spillovers ( “learning effect“) and demand information spillover (”following effect") are two important channels to promote export identity switching of firms, and suppliers are more likely to follow their customers to sell to foreign markets with the same or similar destinations as theirs; (3) firms that have experienced indirect exporting are more likely to be more successful in terms of export survival and export product quality; (4) firms that have experienced indirect exporting are more likely to be less successful in terms of export survival and export product quality. Firms with indirect export experience perform better in terms of export survival and export product quality, with a higher share of domestic market share and a more concentrated range of export products.