Trade Liberalization, Quality, and Export Prices
利用中国细分数据，研究关税削减如何促使企业提升出口产品质量，并分析其对出口价格的影响，发现质量差异化程度不同时价格变化方向相反。
This paper presents theory and evidence from disaggregated Chinese data that tariff reductions induce a country’s producers to upgrade the quality of their exports. We first document stylized facts regarding the effect of trade liberalization on export prices. Next, we develop an analytic framework that relates a firm’s choice of quality to its access to imported intermediates. In the model, a reduction in import tariffs induces a firm to increase export quality and raise its export price in industries where the scope for quality differentiation is large and lower its export price in industries where the scope is small. The predictions are consistent with the stylized facts and are highly robust econometrically.