Technical standards and electronics export: Evidence from China

Employing a panel dataset covering 21 years (1990 - 2010) on China´s electronics export to 133 countries and areas, this paper applies a standard gravity model to investigate the impact of technical standards on China´s foreign trade in the field of electronics. Results indicate that increasing stock for national standards and international standards both have statistically significant and robust trade effects, while the impact varies according to implementation ways of standards as well as categories of electronics products. Conformity with international standards benefits China´s electronics export to the world. Based on these results, we conclude that China should enhance the quality and reputation of its national standards, optimize the composition of standards system, and continue increasing efforts to internationally harmonize national standards.