Exporters in China: A Comparison with Japanese Exporters(in Japanese)

To understand the dynamics of the Chinese economy and Chinese firms, it is important to examine firms' export behaviors, in particular the role of foreign-owned firms in export. This paper investigates entries to and exits from export markets of Chinese firms and the relation between such behaviors and productivity improvement, in comparison with the behaviors of Japanese firms. This comparison leads to several insights on the mechanism of economic growth of the Chinese economy which is most likely to be driven by export. Using firm-level panel data for China from 2000 to 2007 and for Japan from 1994 to 2007, we find that a large number of Chinese firms including unproductive ones entered export markets, probably stimulated by the export boom in 2000s. However, many small exporters exited from export markets soon after their entry.Accordingly, export markets of China are now going to be occupied by a small number of large firms, as in the case of Japan.