国际贸易中的产品质量研究：一个综述

摘要

近年来国际贸易研究领域关于产品质量的研究逐渐兴起。文章从理论和实证两个方面梳理了国际贸易研究中关于产品质量的相关研究。理论上，产品质量既对消费者的消费决策产生影响，又是企业利润最大化决策的重要部分；实证上，利用理论模型，研究者通过将不可观测的产品质量表示为可观测变量的函数，利用贸易数据对贸易产品质量进行测算和推断，并研究识别贸易自由化等冲击对于进出口产品质量的影响。未来的相关研究应从理论和实证两方面，将企业微观层面产品质量的测算方法和影响因素与企业的特征联系起来。%International trade economists have become increasingly interested in product quality in recent years.We review theoretical and empirical studies focusing on product quality in the field of international trade.Theoretically,product quality exerts impacts on consumer’s decision,and is closely linked to firm’s profit maximization.Empirically,unobservable quality can be derived as function of observables and can be inferred from trade data.Economic shocks such as trade liberalization are also found to be important shifters of product quality.Future researches should be devoted to linking firm-level characteristics to feasible approaches to measure quality and potential determinants of product quality.