Abstract Exchange rate plays a price-converting role in international trade and is an important tool for regulating trade balances. Exchange rate changes will have a profound impact on international trade activities. Cross-border e-commerce is an emerging and global business pattern. Exchange rate changes will also affect the trade costs, pricing and profit margins of cross-border e-commerce, thus affecting the overall development of the cross-border e-commerce industry and long-term growth of international trade. Exploring the impact of exchange rate changes on cross-border e-commerce is important for dealing with exchange rate risks, promoting the healthy development of cross-border e-commerce and the steady growth of international trade. Researches on exchange rate and traditional trade have been systematic and comprehensive, while there are few studies on exchange rate changes and cross-border e-commerce, but the topics related to cross-border e-commerce have received more and more attention from academic circles. Based on the data from SUNYOU data base, this paper takes the emerging cross-border e-commerce as the research object. This paper first uses the spatial statistical method to analyze the basic situation of Chinese cross-border e-commerce export trade, and describes the specific spatial layout of the trade flows by the amount of trade and the volume of trade. Subsequently, this paper uses the panel regression model with multi-dimensional fixed effect to estimate the effects of exchange rate fluctuations and other factors (such as price level, geographical distance and economic development level) on Chinese cross-border e-commerce export trade, and make a comparison between the differential impact of exchange rate changes on cross-border e-commerce export trade and traditional export trade, both of which can extend the research area related to cross-border e-commerce and international trade. Based on the spatial layout characteristics of Chinese cross-border e-commerce trade flow, this paper also introduces the spatial estimation method in empirical analysis by making use of the Spatial Durbin Model, and uses the Maximum Likelihood Estimation method to explore the potential spatial spillover effects of exchange rate changes on cross-border e-commerce export trade from the two dimensions of geographical proximity and economical proximity. This paper draws the following conclusions: (1) Consistent with the influence of the exchange rate on traditional export trade, the depreciation of the target country’s currency exchange rate will lead to a reduction in Chinese cross-border e-commerce exports to the target country, though the degree of impact varies; (2) The spatial distribution of Chinese cross-border e-commerce export trade is wide-ranging, but the intensity of different regions varies greatly. From the two dimensions of geographical proximity and economical proximity, there is a relatively stable spatial correlation between the cross-border e-commerce exports to different destination countries, regardless of the amount of trade or the volume of trade; (3) There is a spatial spillover effect in the impact of exchange rate changes on Chinese cross-border e-commerce export trade, that is, exchange rate changes will not only affect Chinese cross-border e-commerce export to a certain destination country , but also affect Chinese cross-border e-commerce export to other countries in the geographical proximity or economical proximity of the destination country. The policy implications contained in this paper mainly have three aspects: Firstly, in the process of promoting the transformation and upgrading of international trade, it is required to strengthen economic cooperation(especially over the exchange rate system arrangement)with other countries, and maintain the stability of the exchange rate from the institutional level; Secondly, while developing cross-border e-commerce export trade, it is necessary to implement a target market diversification strategy to diversify and weaken the influence of currency exchange rate changes of major trading partners. Thirdly, while boosting the cross-border e-commerce, it is of great importance to strengthen the awareness of exchange rate risk management and improve the exchange rate risk management system,and avoid the expected risks brought about by exchange rate changes by settlement currency adjustment and exchange rate-related financial derivatives.
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