关键词: 出口上游度, 出口产品质量, 全要素生产率, 自主研发效率

Abstract: Under the background of economic globalization, the international vertical specialization and the development of outsourcing trade have brought about trade integration and production non-integration as the profit division model of the global value chain. On the one hand, the promotion effect of the global value chain has contributed to the rapid growth of China's economy for more than 30 years. On the other hand, the import of advanced production equipment and high-quality key components from the developed countries to China has caused domestic enterprises to become dependent on exogenous technology, encounter the capture effect of the value chain embedding, and fall into the “low-end lock-in” trap. How to maximize the promotion effect of the global value chain and avoid falling into the trap of the capture effect has become the key to consolidate China's advantage in value chain participation and achieve high-quality economic growth.
In view of this, this paper uses 2000—2006 Chinese industrial enterprise database, customs database and world input-output database to construct micro-panel data, uses the method of industry upstream degree to measure the upstream degree of enterprises' export, and describes the embeddedness position of enterprises in the global value chain. It also examines the relationship between the embeddedness position of the enterprise value chain and the export product quality and further analyzes the internal mechanism of the two. The empirical results are as follows: First of all, the improvement of the export upstream degree significantly promotes the export product quality upgrading of Chinese manufacturing enterprises. In order to avoid possible endogenous problems, the distance to the nearest port and the lag of the upstream degree of export are used as instrumental variables to conduct 2SLS regression. In addition, the year-region fixed effect and the year-industry fixed effect are controlled on the basis of the baseline regression, and the empirical results are still robust. Second, in order to analyze the export upstream microscopic mechanisms, this paper conducts an in-depth exploration of the mediation effect of the labor input scale, the scale of the capital investment, the intermediate inputs, and the quality, the types, and the technology spillovers of imported products based on the empirical test of the total factor productivity and the R&D efficiency intermediary effect. It is found that rising export upstream degrees prompt enterprises to expand the scale of labor and intermediate inputs, strengthen the imported product technology overflow, increase the product variety, improve the quality of imported products, and promote enterprise's total factor productivity, so as to realize the export product quality upgrading, but the mediation effect of the corporate R&D efficiency is not significant. The results also show that Chinese manufacturing enterprises embedded in the global value chain promote the export product quality upgrading through exogenous motivation, but lack endogenous independent research and development motivation. Finally, considering the heterogeneity of enterprises (trade mode and ownership), the industrial technology level and the regional heterogeneity, the interaction term participation regression of the export upstream degree with virtual variables of processing trade enterprises, foreign-funded enterprises, medium and low technology enterprises and enterprises in eastern China are further introduced. The results show that the improvement of the export upstream degree plays a greater role in promoting the export product quality of general trade enterprises, local enterprises, high-tech enterprises and enterprises in central and western regions.
Based on the above empirical research results, in order to promote China's trade upgrading and high-quality economic development, this paper proposes several suggestions. Firstly, enterprises should be encouraged to participate in the global value chain, and at the same time move away from the processing and assembly links to the upstream and relatively more sophisticated production links. Second, the path of improving the quality of enterprises' export products determines the scientific nature and sustainability of high-quality economic development. Manufacturing enterprises should be guided to improve their independent research and development capabilities. Finally, the central and local governments should focus on the differences between enterprises' trade mode, industrial technology level and regional economic development status, adjust enterprises' participation in GVCs and formulate adaptive policies.

Key words: Upstream Degree of Export, Quality of Export Products, Total Factor Productivity, Efficiency of Independent Research and Development