Export tax refund and the misreporting by Chinese exporters
研究了中国出口商如何通过虚报出口数据来获取出口退税，发现出口退税率每提高1个百分点，中国海关与目的地国海关的出口额对数差异增加0.051。
Abstract We document how Chinese exporters misreport their exports to China's customs in order to benefit from export tax refunds. We estimate the response of the logarithmic difference between the exports reported in China's customs data and the imports reported in destination countries' customs data to export tax refund rates. We find that with an increase of 1 percentage point in export tax refund rates, the logarithmic difference increases by 0.051. Additionally, with an increase of 1 percentage point in the export tax refund rates of similar products, this gap decreases by 0.024. Further study reveals that quantity manipulation accounts for the majority of the export reporting distortion.