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| Financial Services, Foreign Entry Policy Adjustment and Exports:Evidence from China's Micro Data |
| HOU Xinyu, CHEN Luyao, SUN Puyang
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School of Economics, Nankai University;
Center for Transnational Studies of Nankai University |
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Abstract Service intermediaries are increasingly influencing manufacturing firms. As an important part of the service industry, financial services provide financing channels, insurance systems, securitization channels, and import or export financial services to manufacturers. However, the internationalization of China's financial market is slow to develop. Since the formal announcement of the Protocol on the Accession of the People's Republic of China in 2001, China's foreign investment regulation of banking, insurance, securities, and other financial services have gradually liberalized. This study focuses mainly on the dynamic adjustment of foreign investment policy in the financial services industry. It theoretically and empirically examines the impact of the dynamic change in foreign investment policy in the financial services industry on the export behavior of downstream firms, and conducts a heterogeneous analysis from the perspective of policy sensitivity. It also analyzes the related mechanisms.
Theoretically, at first, foreign investment deregulation of the financial services industry causes new financial service providers to enter the market. Downstream firms can use a wider range of financial services to improve the efficiency of export production and operation (Anrold et al., 2016). Second, the market competition effect brought about by the opening of financial services forces financial services providers to improve their service efficiency and quality, which can help reduce firm export risk, accelerate the export business cycle, and reduce the fixed and variable export costs (Hummels, 2013). In addition, the improvement in the efficiency and quality of financial services can improve firm output efficiency and thus increase export revenue. Finally, the decreasing service prices caused by deregulation (Fernande and Paunov, 2012) may reduce the variable export costs and thus increase export revenue. The initial adjustment in foreign investment policy in the financial services sector therefore promotes downstream firm exports. Moreover, we reveal that the heterogeneity in enterprise management efficiency and the characteristics of product factor input reflect the sensitivity of firms to adjustments in foreign investment policy in the financial services. The export performance of highly management-efficient firms, non-technology-intensive firms, and capital-intensive product firms is more responsive to foreign investment deregulation in the financial services.
Based on the theoretical analysis, this study uses information from the Chinese Catalogue for the Guidance of Industries for Foreign Investment to construct an index of foreign investment regulation in China's financial services industry from 1998 to 2007, and measures the dynamic changes in foreign investment policy in China's financial services industry for the first time. Next, we use the input-output table to measure the impact of liberalizing upstream financial services on downstream export firms and then match it to China's NBS database for empirical analysis. The results show that the deregulation of foreign investment in the financial services industry helps to improve the intensive and extensive margins of manufacturing firm exports. Second, highly management-efficient firms and firms which produce non-technology intensive or capital-intensive products are more sensitive to foreign investment deregulation in the financial services industry. Finally, this study verifies the intermediary mechanism of adjusting foreign investment policy in the financial services industry through the channel of firm financing.
This study has important policy implications. First, to contribute to the sustainable development of China's export trade, efforts should be made to promote the opening up of financial services related to manufacturing production and exports. At the same time, the elimination of administrative monopolies and the introduction of market mechanisms in the financial services should be accelerated to deepen the opening-up and promotion of policy effects. Finally, we should pay attention to the different sensitivities of downstream manufacturers to adjustments in foreign investment policy in the financial services, to the construction of learning and management capabilities of firms, and to the acquisition of financial services by non-technology-intensive and capital-intensive export firms. In this way, manufacturing firms can obtain more positive effects on export growth from the deregulation of the financial services industry.
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Received: 22 May 2017
Published: 29 November 2019
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