The role of firm factors in demand, cost, and export market selection for Chinese footwear producers

Mark Roberts, Daniel Yi Xu, Xiaoyan Fan and Shengxing Zhang

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: In this article, we use micro data on both trade and production for a sample of large Chinese manufacturing firms in the footwear industry from 2002 to 2006 to estimate an empirical model of export demand, pricing, and market participation by destination market. We use the model to construct indexes of firm-level demand, marginal cost, and fixed cost. The empirical results indicate substantial firm heterogeneity in all three dimension with demand being the most dispersed. The firm-specific demand and marginal cost components account for over 30% of market share variation, 40% of sales variation, and over 50% of price variation among exporters. The fixed cost index is the primary factor explaining differences in the pattern of destination markets across firms. The estimates are used to analyse the supply reallocation following the removal of the quota on Chinese footwear exports to the EU. This led to a rapid restructuring of export supply sources on both the intensive and extensive margins in favour of firms with high demand and low fixed costs indexes, with marginal cost differences not being important.

Keywords: demand; export market selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F14 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cna, nep-com and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Published in Review of Economic Studies, 1, October, 2018, 85(4), pp. 2429 - 2461. ISSN: 0034-6527

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/90575/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Role of Firm Factors in Demand, Cost, and Export Market Selection for Chinese Footwear Producers (2018)
Working Paper: The Role of Firm Factors in Demand, Cost, and Export Market Selection for Chinese Footwear Producers (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:90575

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