Has the Belt and Road Initiative Improved the Quality of Food Imported by Chinese Enterprises?

Abstract

Using micro-level data from 2009-2015 and the difference-in-difference method, this paper empirically examines the impact of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on the quality of food imported by Chinese enterprises from BRI countries. Our baseline results show that the BRI signifi cantly improved the quality of food imported from these countries. Further investigation reveals that trade patterns, ownership types, import regions, transportation methods, and product quality show significant heterogeneous effects in infl uencing the quality of imported food. A mechanism analysis indicates that the BRI improves the quality of imported food through three main channels: import trade environment enhancement, competition effect, and consumption upgrading, with the competition effect having the largest impact compared with the other two channels. Our fi ndings suggest that China should not only improve the infrastructure in BRI countries but also use the BRI as an opportunity to enhance the level of cooperation with BRI countries and maintain stability and sustainability in cooperation with them.

How can trade partners be chosen when facing food scandals? China's milk scandal as a natural experiment

“…Following Hummels and Skiba (2004), we used the distance between China and the trade partner multiplied by the oil price to measure the transportation cost. Our measure would help cover the Washington Apple Effect, which states that trade products' quality improves significantly with increased transportation distance (Baldwin & Harrigan, 2011;Zhou et al, 2022). T A B L E 1 (Continued)…”

“…At the same time, to investigate the differences in the impact of national economic development arising from the scandal, the countries were divided into two parts: developed countries and developing countries. 6 Since the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative, bilateral cooperation between China and the Belt and Road countries has continued to flourish and expand (Zhou et al, 2022). To measure the impact of China's milk scandal on trade between China and countries along the Belt and Road, we also added a dummy variable for Belt and Road countries.…”

“…First, a common language can help reduce trade uncertainty between trading partners. This is conducive to promoting stable and smooth trading relations between countries (Egger & Lassmann, 2015; Jun et al, 2020; Lameli et al, 2015; Zhou et al, 2022). A common language can also significantly enhance the degree of trust between countries.…”

“…To test our hypothesis, in this section, we have constructed a product quality index based on Khandelwal's (2010) nested logit model and Khandelwal et al's (2013) model (the KSW model). The nested logit model was mainly used to measure product quality at the national product level, starting with the consumer utility function of product quality, and the KSW model was used to measure quality, which can eliminate the demand price factor (Zhou et al, 2022). Therefore, we adopted the KSW model to measure dairy product quality.…”

Influence of Belt & Road on consensual Trade with Path to Structural Trade Model

“…(Djibouti: Small Country, Big Stakes, n.d.). BRI has significantly improved create date impact on the food quality that is imported from other countries linked to the belt and road project (Zhou et al, 2022). China also opens its ports to Turkmenistan, which is the (TRACECA) corridor of trade from western China through the Central Asian nations of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan to Europe.…”