| SUN Churen,LI Meimei,YU Jinping.China’s Foreign Aid and Firms’ Export Product Diversification[J].The Journal of quantitative and technical economics,2025,(12):174-193 |
| 中国对外援助与企业出口产品多元化 |
| China’s Foreign Aid and Firms’ Export Product Diversification |
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| DOI： |
| 中文关键词: 对外援助 企业出口 产品多元化 国家形象 贸易成本 |
| 英文关键词: Foreign Aid Enterprise Exports Product Diversification National Image Trade Costs |
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| 中文摘要: |
| 出口产品多元化是企业规避风险、实现贸易稳定增长、促进经济高质量发展的重要途径。本文构建多产品异质企业贸易模型，基于微观企业数据实证检验中国对外援助对企业出口产品多元化的影响及其作用机制。研究发现，中国对外援助显著促进企业出口产品多元化。机制检验揭示两条关键渠道：一是国家形象提升效应，中国对外援助增强了受援国对中国企业的认同感，降低了市场渗透难度；二是贸易成本削减效应，援助降低了双边贸易壁垒，减少了企业多元化发展的成本。异质性分析表明，该促进效应在私营及外资企业、大额受援国、商业及发展导向援助以及非洲受援国中更为显著。进一步研究发现，中国对外援助通过影响企业出口二元边际、组内组间效应以及核心产品转换等路径，推动企业出口结构的优化调整。本文不仅凸显了中国援助政策的正当性与建设性，更展现了对外援助惠人及己和互利共赢的本质特征，为优化援助政策提供了重要参考。 |
| 英文摘要: |
| Due to global supply chain restructuring and heightened volatility in international markets, export diversification has become a critical strategy for firms to mitigate risks and enhance supply chain resilience. The Chinese government has attached great importance to its export diversification strategy. At the micro level, product diversification enables firms to cultivate broader networks of upstream and downstream partners within the supply chain, reducing dependence on single nodes and thereby dispersing risks. From the perspective of long-term corporate development, product diversification triggers learning-by-exporting effects that stimulate research and development innovation, enhance competitiveness and positioning in global value chains, and help firms escape the low-end lock-in trap.Furthermore, China’s foreign aid serves as a vital instrument for this emerging power to participate in global governance, with its economic effects attracting sustained attention from both academic and policy circles. Unlike traditional aid models, China’s foreign aid emphasizes mutual benefit and pragmatic cooperation. This new model of international development cooperation leverages aid funds to stimulate trade and investment, advance bilateral economic relations, enhanceinternational image, reduce trade barriers, and strengthen firms’ competitiveness in external markets. However, existing research predominantly focuses on aid’s economic impact on recipient countries, overlooking the fact that firms in donor countries are also significant beneficiaries. Therefore, departing from the one-sided perspective of traditional aid studies, this study evaluates the economic effects of China’s foreign aid through the lens of firms’ export product diversification. It reveals the inherent mutual benefit of aid and provides empirical evidence supporting new theories of international development cooperation.This study constructs a multi-product heterogeneous firm trade model and employs a micro-firm database covering the period from 2000 to 2013 to systematically examine the mechanisms through which China’s foreign aid influences firms’ export product diversification. The findings indicate that (1) China’s foreign aid significantly promotes firms’ export product diversification. (2) China’s foreign aid operates through two principal mechanisms—enhancing national image and reducing trade costs. The former strengthens recipient countries’ recognition of Chinese firms, while the latter lowers bilateral trade barriers, jointly creating favorable conditions for firms’ diversification. (3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the impact is more pronounced for private and foreign-invested firms, larger recipient countries, commercially oriented aid, and African recipient countries. (4) China’s foreign aid drives export structure diversification through specific pathways, including export extensive and intensive margins, within- and between-product reallocation effects, and core product reorientation.These findings have several policy implications. First, the government should integrate foreign aid into a comprehensive foreign economic policy framework to strengthen coordination with trade, investment, and other policies. Establishing information-sharing mechanisms can ensure that aid projects meet recipient countries’ development needs while unlocking the potential for bilateral economic and trade cooperation, thereby aligning aid effectiveness with economic benefits. Second, aid implementation should focus on national image building and trade cost reduction. Promoting people-to-people connections through livelihood projects and prioritizing infrastructure and institutional capacity building can both help recipient countries improve development conditions and create favorable environments for bilateral trade. Third, differentiated aid strategies should be adopted. More market information and support services should be provided to private and foreign-invested firms. Resources should be directed toward countries with high strategic importance and strong cooperation potential, while maintaining equity. The proportion of development- and commercial-oriented aid should be appropriately increased. Fourth, aid implementation mechanisms should be improved. Information and support systems should be established to help firms seize market opportunities. Comprehensive support frameworks covering market expansion and product innovation should be developed. Differentiated support measures should be provided to firms at different development stages to maximize aid’s aggregate impact.In summary, this study demonstrates the mutually beneficial nature of China’s foreign aid through the dimension of firms’ export diversification, confirming its dual-mechanism role in promoting diversified firm development by enhancing national image and reducing trade costs. The study provides empirical evidence for building a new model of international development cooperation that integrates aid and trade, while offering policy guidance for optimizing aid allocation, thereby helping firms enhance supply chain resilience and achieve value chain upgrading. |
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