(School of International Trade and Economics, University of International Business and Economics)
Abstract: Education maintained at a desirable level is the basis for long-term economic growth and an important driving force for the sustainable opening-up in all regions. Against the background of the improvement made in education quality and the continuation of opening to the outside world, a study， in consideration of different regions and types of education, is made in this paper of the difference effects of a few types of education supply on the export behavior of Chinese enterprises, by matching the data collected from china industrial enterprise database and regional education index. The study finds that the level of education supply exerts a significant influence on the export behavior of enterprises by way of affecting trade costs, while the effects vary from the extensive margin to the intensive margin of export. Different impacts can be felt on the different export behavior of enterprises in coastal and inland regions, for the obvious gap existing between the education levels in these different regions respectively. The positive impact of education supply on the export behavior is found to be greater in the enterprises in the eastern region than those in the western part of the country. While vocational education finds its strongest impact on the export of labor intensive industries, the intensive margin of higher education to the export of different types of industries is larger than the extensive margin.
Key words: education level, trade cost, enterprise export, intensive margin, extensive margin