Abstract: Moving from trading nation to trading power has become a top priority for foreign trade development in the new era. In 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized the significance of “high-quality development” and the importance of “stabilizing quantity and improving quality” as a fundamental measure to reshape new advantages of foreign trade. In October 2022, the report of the 20th Party Congress re-emphasized“adhering to the theme of promoting high-quality development”. In this context, one question that urgently needs to be answered is how to upgrade quality of exports as well as re-empower foreign trade? This has also evolved into a research hotspot in the field of international trade. As one of the indispensable factors affecting the quality of exports, information could flow and spread unconsciously among different individuals, such as firms, regions and industries, and this process is often referred to as information spillover. A large amount of literature indicates that information spillover could really help firms break down information barriers, reduce uncertainty risks, and better connect to international markets, so as to make sound judgments about the quality of their exports, while deciding whether to upgrade. So, how can we obtain information spillover?
The existing studies emphasize that spatial proximity is the prerequisite for firms to acquire information spillover, which is highly regionalized. In fact, regional limitations have been broken gradually with advent of the information age today, and firms involved in exporting tend to pay more attention to information spillover caused by the competitions from domestic peers, and also to the quality of their exports. This paper employs high-dimensional panel data obtained by matching two huge databases about Chinese industrial firms and Chinese customs to perform empirical tests, with a sample period of 2003—2013. First, we use an improved method of residuals of demand function to estimate the quality of exports, and identify the characteristics of industrial information spillover, including information about exports' scale and diversity from peers, which hasn't been covered in previous literature. Next, we carry out baseline regression and robustness tests after fully considering various variables and trends that may affect the quality of exports. Then, we analyze mechanisms through which industrial information spillover works, not only through its own internal information network, but also through cross-industrial external information network, in order to increase the quality of exports on a wider scale. Finally, we compare the heterogeneous effects of industrial information spillover on the upgrading of quality, concerning firm's scale, industrial factor intensity and destination's income level, which is a breakthrough compared with previous studies.
This paper finds that industrial information spillover contributes to the quality of exports among Chinese manufacturing firms significantly, mainly because information spillover can release crucial signals to firms, such as destinations' preferences for scale and diversity of imports exported by Chinese firms, resulting in greater subjective initiative to obtain upgrades. This above basic conclusion remains robust after changing core variable indicators, considering the knock from urban spillover and focusing on general trade. At the same time, increasing density of exporters for any industry can reinforce the positive impact of information spillover, and the sharing of information within firms also helps to improve the quality of their exports. Furthermore, industrial information spillover is inclined to exert a “continuous” influence on firms within its scope by maintaining and improving its own information network, and cause a “transitive” impact on firms outside its scope through cross-industrial information network. What's more, the above-mentioned results are different due to the heterogeneity of information receivers and suppliers, as shown by the fact that the upgrading effects brought by industrial information spillover are more often found in technology-intensive industries, large-scale firms and high-income destinations.
The conclusions of this paper have significant insights for promoting the sharing of industrial information, and pursuing high-quality development. First, local governments should give full play to their guiding role, eliminate industrial information barriers, facilitate the free-flow of information within and across industries, guide market players to engage in healthy competition, and reduce unnecessary losses caused by export congestion. Second, industrial associations should devote themselves to unblocking information network, building consulting platforms about information services, speeding up collecting and promoting export information, and motivating peer-to-peer experience sharing. Third, firms should accelerate the promotion and application of information technology, optimize their decisions with the help of industrial information spillover, and take initiatives to upgrade the quality of their exports, so as to meet the preferences of a larger and more diverse demand. In addition, all kinds of participants in the market should pay more attention to the heterogeneous effects brought by industrial information spillover in practice, especially large-scale firms and technology-intensive industries exporting to high-income destinations, so as to accelerate the road to upgrading the quality of exports.

Key words: Industrial Information Spillover, Firm Exports, Product Quality, Manufacturing Industry

摘要： 本文选取2003—2013年中国制造业企业出口产品的微观数据,检验行业信息溢出对企业出口质量的影响效应。研究发现,同行业出口规模及产品多样性信息溢出显著促进企业出口质量升级,这一结论在更换核心变量指标、考虑城市溢出冲击和聚焦一般贸易后仍然稳健。进一步地,行业信息溢出通过自有信息网络和跨行业信息网络对企业出口质量产生“持续性”和“传递性”的影响。此外,上述影响效应还因信息接收方和供应方的异质性而有所不同。

关键词: 行业信息溢出, 企业出口, 产品质量, 制造业