Firm and Product Heterogeneity in China's Automotive Exports

The main purpose of this paper is to provide an in-depth analysis of the anatomy of China's automotive exports, relying on the literature on firm and product heterogeneity. For this purpose, we use highly disaggregated HS 8-digit product-category level data collected by the Chinese Customs Office for 2000 and 2008, and we distinguish between foreign firms, domestic public firms, and domestic private firms. We also decompose automotive products into autos and auto parts and components (P/C). We then calculate both the extensive margins – number of products exported – and intensive margins – average value of exports per product – of China's automotive exports. We estimate gravity equations to assess the determinants of China's exports of autos and auto P/C. Overall, our analysis yields a number of new, interesting stylized facts about China's automotive exports by confirming the need for taking into account different types of heterogeneity in analyzing international trade.