【作者】 钟建军；

【导师】 赵伟；

【作者基本信息】 浙江大学 ， 国际贸易学， 2014， 博士

【摘要】 产品异质性、中间产品贸易是国际贸易理论与实证研究近些年辟出的新视野。沿着此类视野切入的研究已提出多个重要的命题,包括中间产品贸易与生产率增进、工资与最终产品质量变化,以及生产要素质量与最终产品质量相关性等等。然而值得注意的是,作为生产与交易活动的微观主体,企业对劳动和中间产品的配置具有选择能动性。劳动经济学有关研究揭示,工资上升在很大程度上代表着劳动者素质的提升,企业会选择较高质量的中间产品与素质提升了的劳动匹配,借以提升最终产品质量因而收益。由此意味着在工资和中间产品质量之间存在因果联系。本文主旨,就在于对这种联系进行理论分析与实证检验。具体而言,基于现有研究文献,先从劳动者和企业两个行为主体分别审视作为劳动报酬的工资与作为企业要素成本变化的效应,继而理出工资和劳动者素质、劳动成本和企业对进口中间产品质量选择的内在机制,并予以模型刻画,提出实证命题。最后,分两个层面进行了实证检验。研究的理论意义不仅在于理清生产要素质量异质性与产品质量异质性之间的内在逻辑联系,拓展异质性理论的研究视角,还在于为工资上涨是否会促使企业采用高质量进口中间产品提供理论依据,并就中国现实提供政策启示。理论上,基于已有研究成果,本文聚焦于工资、劳动者素质与进口中间产品质量等变量之间的链条关系,梳理并提炼了其间的内生机制,理出了两个机制。分别为考虑非位似偏好的劳动者素质与进口中间产品质量问的内在联系,以及考虑非位似偏好的中间产品质量与生产率的内在关系。进而以模型刻画了劳动成本与进口中间产品质量间的内在机理。在以上两个机理的基础上,提出了以下两个理论命题：一是劳动者素质正向影响进口中间产品质量；二是在某一个临界值之前,劳动成本上涨对进口中间产品质量存在正向效应,之后则负。实证上,盯住以上机制引出的命题,分两个层面展开。先采用全球38个典型经济体数据进行检验,再引入中国数据进行检验。计量模型基于理论模型,同时针对基础变量,依次加入其它控制变量以验证基础变量与被解释变量间关系的稳健性。理论分析和分层实证检验得出的结论有二：其一,劳动者素质对进口中间产品质量具有显著的正向效应,且这种正向效应在不同样本、不同时间段强度不一,OECD国家的效应最强,中低收入国家最弱,1999-2001年间最强,2002-2009年间最弱。中国在借助劳动者素质匹配进口中间产品质量机制上较印度、巴西和俄罗斯更具比较优势,但中国的劳动者素质较巴西和俄罗斯更低。中国样本数据的实证结果表明,中国劳动者素质始终正向显著影响进口中间产品质量,且这种正向效应在来自不同类型国家样本大小不一,来自非OECD成员的样本最大,欧盟成员最小。以高、中、低级技术工人小时工资为劳动者素质代理变量的结果显示,从总体来看,低级技术工人的正向效应最强,其次是中级技术工人,再次是高级技术工人。其二,劳动成本与进口中间产品质量之间的确存在“U型”非线性关系,并且当前处于“U型”的上升阶段,即劳动成本上涨会“倒逼”企业进口高质量的中间产品。即使加入不同的控制变量,控制不同的固定效应,并考虑不同子样本的情形,这一结果仍然稳健。中国数据的实证结果显示,中国制造业劳动工资对制造业所进口的中间产品质量始终具有显著正向效应,且在样本期间的观察时段呈递增之势。更多还原

【Abstract】 Product heterogeneity and trading in intermediate product are the new topics of the international trade theory and empirical research in recent years. The research on these topics have focused on several important sub-topics, including trading in intermediate product and increasing in productivity, wage and the change of the quality of final product, the relationship between the quality of production factor and that of final product, and so on. It is worth noting that for the micro subject of production and exchange, the firm has the configuration choice between labor force and intermediate product. The related studies in Labor Economics have shown that to some extent the increasing wage means the improvement of labor quality. The firm can choose the intermediate product with high quality to math the labor force to upgrade the quality of product, and thus the revenue. Thus this mechanism implies that there is a causal link between wage and the quality of intermediate product. This paper aims to analyze this connection theoretically and empirically. Specifically. Based on the previous literature, this paper reexamines the effect of wage resulting in the labor compensation and that of the change of enterprise’s production factor with the view of labor force and enterprise separately, clarifies the inter mechanism among wage, labor quality, labor cost and the choice of enterprise to select the quality of imported intermediate product, and then characterizes the mechanisms with the help of theoretical model to provide the empirical proposition. At last, this paper analyzes the empirical proposition with two levels. The theoretical innovation of this paper is not only to clarify the internal mechanism between the quality heterogeneity of production factor and that of product, and to expand the researching view of product quality heterogeneity, but also to provide a theoretical foundation that whether the increasing wage can stimulate the firm to introduce the imported intermediate product with high quality, and to bring forward some policy implication on the trade situation in China. Theoretically, based on previous literatures, this paper demonstrates and refines the internal chain relationship among wage, labor quality and the quality of imported intermediate product. The two mechanisms are the internal relationship between the labor quality with the view of non-homothetic preference and the quality of imported intermediate product, and the internal link between the quality of intermediate product with the view of non-homothetic preference and productivity. Thus this paper depicts the internal mechanism between labor cost and the quality of imported intermediate product in a model. Based on the above two mechanisms, we raise two theoretical hypotheses:the first is that the labor quality has positive effect on the quality of imported intermediate product. The second is that, the rising labor cost influences the quality of imported intermediate product positively before some threshold value, negative after the threshold value.Empirically, focusing on the propositions induced by the above mechanisms, the analysis can be divided into two parts. Firstly, this paper tests them based on38economic entities’data and then on Chinese data. The econometric model is based on the theoretical model to deal with the basic variable, and then adds the other control variables into the econometric model to verify the robustness of the relationship between the basic independent variable and dependant variables.The main conclusions from the theoretical analysis and empirical test are as follow:Firstly, the labor quality has significant positive effect on the quality of imported intermediate goods, and the intensity of this positive effect is different in different sample, time interval. The effect is strongest in OECD countries, lowest in middle-low income ones, and it is strongest over the interval (1999,2001), lowest over the interval (2002,2009). China owes the comparative advantage in the mechanism using labor quality to match the quality of imported intermediate goods over India, Brazil and Russia, but the labor quality is lower than Brazil and Russia. The empirical analysis with Chinese data shows that the labor quality has significant positive effect on the quality of imported intermediate goods, and the intensity of this positive effect is different in different sample, it is strongest in non-OECD countries, lowest in EU countries. If we apply the wage per-hour of high, middle, and low skilled worker as the labor quality’s proxy variable, we can find that the positive effect of the low-skilled worker is strongest, the second is the middle-skilled worker, and the last is the high-skilled worker.Secondly, the "U-shape" non-linear relationship indeed exists between labor cost and the quality of imported intermediate goods, and now the point lies in the rising phase of the "U-shape". This indicates that the rising labor cost can force the firm to import the intermediate product with high quality. Even though different control variables, fixed effect are added into the model, the result is also robust. The empirical analysis with Chinese data shows that the labor cost of manufacturing industry has significant positive effect on the quality of imported intermediate goods, and the intensity of this positive effect is increasing.更多还原