文档介绍：Economics of Planning 36: 45–67, 2003. 45
© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in herlands.
Determinants of Export Performance: Evidence
from Chinese Industries
XIAOHUI LIU1 and CHANG SHU2
1Department of Business and Marketing, Luton Business School, The University of Luton, Park
Square, Luton, Beds LU1 3JU, UK (E-mail: xiaohui.******@);
2Research Department, Hong Kong ary Authority, 30/F, 3 Garden Road, Central Hong Kong,
Hong Kong (E-mail: chang_******@)
(Received 20 November 2001; accepted in revised form 9 May 2003)
Abstract. This paper empirically investigates the determinants of Chinese export performance using
cross-sectional data at the industry level. We find that the export performance of different industries is
significantly influenced by labour costs, foreign direct investment (FDI) and firm size, and thus open
to a variety of explanations offered by traditional and new trade theories. These findings indicate that
Chinese industrial sectors have realised parative advantages, but point to the need for the
industries to upgrade their export structure in order to sustain growth.
JEL Classification: C31, F14, F23
Key words: Chinese industries, comparative advantages, export performance, FDI
1. Introduction
The phenomenal economic growth in China has been panied by fast growth
in its export sector as well as significant changes in trade patterns in the country’s
industrial sectors. China accounted for a mere % of total world exports in 1978.
However, by 2001, this share had increased to %, moving China from the 32nd
to the 6th largest trading nation in the world (WTO, 2001).
China’s trade volumes and patterns at the aggregated level have been examined
extensively in the literature (Lardy, 1994; World Bank, 1994; Fukasaku and Le-
comte, 1996; Fung, 1996; Zhang and Song, 2000; Sun, 2001). The extent to which
trade volumes and patterns can be explained by the open-door policy and trade
liberalisation has been t