The Impact of Antidumping on the R&D of Export Firms: Evidence from China

摘要

The micro-influence of antidumping (AD) trade barriers has been given more attention lately, but the influence of AD barriers on the research and development (R&D) of export firms has not yet been studied empirically. In this study, we use firm-level data from China and difference-in-difference and Tobit models to examine the responses of export firms' R&D activities to AD barriers. The results show that AD barriers significantly reduce firms' R&D investment and R&D intensity, in particular, R&D investment among general export firms, high-tech firms, and single-product firms. While ordinary trade firms and high-tech firms are more R&D intensive, larger-scale export firms generally have higher productivity. Therefore, AD barriers have a significant effect on firms' innovation, long-term productivity improvement, and allocation of R&D resources. We also examined the impact mechanism from the perspective of financial constraints.