With a little help from my friends: Multinational retailers and China's consumer market penetration

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Emlinger, Charlotte; Poncet, Sandra
• 署名单位: heSam Universite; Universite Pantheon-Sorbonne; Paris School of Economics
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2018.01.007
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 1-12
• 关键词: Multinational retailers; CHINA; imports

摘要

We investigate the supply-side repercussions on Chinese imports after the entry of multinational retailers in China. We exploit sector- and origin-country level import data for a panel of Chinese cities between 1997 and 2012, and differentiate between retailer and non retailer goods and across countries of origin of imports. We find that international global retail presence in Chinese cities produces a disproportionate rise in retail good imports from the retailers' country of origin. Our results point to a trade-cost reducing role of Western retailers that make it easier for foreign retail-good producers from their home country to export to China. Global retailers then act as a bridgehead for the penetration of the Chinese market by producers from their home country, in a way that goes beyond higher sales of imported retail goods by the retailers themselves. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.