“格致·博雅”青年学者论坛（第二十期）

讲座主题：Automate to Upgrade: Export Destinations and Technology Adoption

主讲嘉宾：张睿，中山大学商学院副教授，博士生导师

时    间：2023年11月8日（周三）10:30-12:00

地    点：中央财经大学沙河二教112

主 持 人：钟腾龙 副教授 国际贸易系主任

点 评 人：刘悦 副教授；刘亚琳 助理教授

主    办：中央财经大学国际经济与贸易学院

讲座内容：

Automation not only saves labor costs but also increases the precision and reliability of the produced goods, hence facilitating quality upgrading for producers. As a result, increasing demand from high-income consumers who strongly prefer higher-quality goods creates stronger incentives for producers to adopt automation technologies. We develop a simple model in which producers face non-homothetic consumers in different markets. The model predicts that a producer is more willing to automate when exposed to demands for higher-quality goods. We examine the model’s predictions by using detailed information on the export and import of Chinese firms from 2001 to 2015. To identify the causal effect of export demand on automation, we construct a firm-level export demand shock using a shift-share design. We find that an increase in demand from high-income export destinations causes a larger increase in firm imports of automation equipment than an increase in demand from low-income export destinations. Furthermore, we show that the increased imports of automation equipment are primarily from OECD countries, i.e., countries supposedly excel at producing advanced automation equipment. We also find that such automation induced by high-income demands mainly appears among private firms, large-scale manufacturers, and customized goods producers.

嘉宾简介：

张睿，中山大学商学院副教授，博士生导师。2019年毕业于北京大学国家发展研究院，获经济学博士学位。2019年秋至2022年秋在丹麦Aarhus University担任经济系与商业经济系助理教授。研究兴趣为国际贸易和空间经济学。研究论文发表于The Economic Journal、《经济研究》、《管理世界》、《经济学（季刊）》、《世界经济》、《金融研究》等学术杂志。目前主持国家自然科学基金青年科学基金项目。