RIEB Discussion Paper Series No.2019-19

RIEB Discussion Paper Series No.2019-19

Title

Infrastructure Bottlenecks and Dual-Channel Exporters

Abstract

This paper investigates how infrastructure bottlenecks affect a firm's export mode. We find that under infrastructure bottlenecks, the most efficient firms become the so-called "dual-channel exporters", which export only a fraction of their products directly, with the remaining products exported through intermediaries. Using linked annual survey of industrial production and transaction-level customs datasets in China, we document that a significant share of firms are the dual-channel exporters. Further, these exporters are more productive than the direct and indirect exporters. Our quantitative model suggests that the elimination of exporting capacity constraint arising from infrastructure bottlenecks leads to substantial aggregate productivity growth via improved resource reallocation.

Keywords

Infrastructure bottlenecks, Dual-channel Exporters, Productivity, Capacity constraint, Resource misallocation

JEL Classification

F10, O18

Inquiries

Xiao FENG
School of Economics, Nankai University

Yongjin WANG
School of Economics, Nankai University

Laixun ZHAO
Research Institute for Economics and Business Administration,
Kobe University
Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe
657-8501 Japan
Phone: +81-78-803-7036
FAX: +81-78-803-7059
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