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| Does Economic Policy Uncertainty Affect Firms' Export Decisions？ A Study from the Perspective of Export Frequency |
| QI Jianhong, YIN Da, LIU Hui
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| School of Economics, Shandong University; School of Economics, Renmin University of China; School of Finance, Shandong University of Finance and Economics |
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Abstract In recent years, anti-globalization and nationalist efforts among Western countries have forced governments around the world to constantly adjust their economic and trade policies, which has increased the frequency and extent of governments' economic intervention.This has not only aggravated economic policy uncertainty but also led to deterioration in the global trade environment and uncertain trade prospects.In particular, American economic policies such as large-scale tariff increases and sustained interest rate hikes have meant that Chinese exporters are often unable to predict whether, when, and how destination countries will change their economic policies. As a result, Chinese exporters have to bear a strong exogenous impact of economic policy uncertainty on their export decisions.
The literature on the effects of economic policy uncertainty on export decision-making has mainly emphasized the volume and types of export, rather than export frequency. However, export frequency is an important part of export decision-making, as it can aid export expansion, reduce trade costs, and provide early warning of market fluctuations.Export frequency provides a new perspective for explaining a country's trade growth; it not only helps us to understand the decisions of micro-enterprises in international trade but also to predict the impact of external shocks on China's trade development.Therefore, one must consider export frequency when examining the impact of economic policy uncertainty on export decisions.
This paper uses the Economic Policy Uncertainty (EPU) Index to explore the impact of EPU on firms' trade activities from the perspective of export frequency.Based on the expansion of a stochastic inventory model, it divides the pathways for the effect of EPU on export frequency into trade cost, inventory cost, and market demand fluctuation. Matched data from China's Industrial Enterprise Database and China's Customs Database from 2000 to 2006 were used for an empirical test. The results show that when EPU increases, firms tend to reduce export frequency to control trade cost and avoid potential risks. The results of PSM further show that EPU has an inertial effect in destination countries with a high long-term level of uncertainty, even if there are signs of stability in the short term, firms will not immediately increase export frequency. Second, this paper uses a mediation effect model to examine the pathway sthrough which EPU affects firms' export frequency. It finds that increased EPU in destination countries reduces export frequency by aggravating trade cost, inventory cost, and market demand fluctuations. Of these three,trade cost plays the most important role, accounting for more than 19 percent of the total effect. Finally, by considering the heterogeneity of destination countries, products, and firms, it is found that the export frequency of firms with higher economic development of destination countries and which export intermediate and consumer goods is less affected by EPU.
Therefore, the government and firms should pay more attention to changes in export frequency, and take action to prevent external shock from EPU. China should ensure that its macro policies are transparent, continuous, and stable, which will reduce economic policy uncertainty at the source.In response to the impact of trade cost,government should strengthen relationships with trading partners, to reduce exporting firms' trade and transportation costs. In view of the impact of inventory costs, firms should strengthen their inventory management to reduce the risk of rising inventory costs and depreciation. As for the impact of demand fluctuation,China should investigate potential complementary trade with other countries, look for new patterns of trade growth, and reduce fluctuations in demand.
The contributions of this paper lie in three aspects.First, it theoretically explains and empirically tests three pathways for the influence of EPU on enterprise export frequency: trade cost, inventory cost, and market demand fluctuation. Second, in discussing the impact of EPU on export frequency, it highlights the differences in terms of destination countries, products, and firms, thus supplementing existing research. Third, because firms cannot grasp all of the information, and the expectation for EPU is not completely rational, this paper further examines the dynamic inertial effect in terms of export frequency.
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Received: 25 December 2018
Published: 10 June 2020
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