The Impact of Air Capacity on Industrial Technology Upgrading in the Context of Global Value Chain Restructuring
摘要
In the context of global value chain restructuring, developing countries involved in processing trade face severe challenges in industrial upgrading. The development of transportation can accelerate the flow of knowledge resources and promote regional technology upgrading. This study aims to investigate whether the development of air capacity can alleviate the regional demand for technologically sophisticated trade, incorporate the factor of international air capacity into the influencing factors of product technology sophistication, explore the relationship between regional transportation development and the technical level of trade products from the perspective of enterprises, so as to fill the gap in relevant research. By combining OAG databases with customs data, the study matches the import and export data of 1302 listed companies from 2010 to 2016, along with corresponding regional air transport data. The empirical results demonstrate that increasing air capacity reduces the regional demand for trade technology sophistication. Moreover, internal factors such as enterprise R&D expenditure and capital-intensive negatively moderate the influence of air capacity growth on the trade technology sophistication. Additionally, external institutional factors, such as government effectiveness and the business environment across various countries negatively regulate the impact of the air capacity expansion on trade technology sophistication.