Does Export Credit Insurance Really Promote International Trade: Evidence from China

This paper finds a strong causal link between the export credit insurance and the exports in China. We use the province-level data on annual export credit insurance premiums of 21 provincial subsidiaries of China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation, the most extensive database on Chinese trade credits available at the moment for the period of 2004-2014. We investigate whether the export credit insurance facilitates exports, and whether it alleviates the drop in exports during the global financial crisis. Using an instrumental variable strategy we identify a significantly positive effect of export credit insurance on exports, find that a 1 million RMB increase in export credit insurance premiums leads to a 212.67 million US dollar increase in exports. Empirical results show that the trade-enhancing effect of the export credit insurance has been suffering wane during the crisis, but the export credit insurance premiums have been rising after the onset of the financial crisis, showing conspicuous counter-cyclical characteristics and weakening the fall in international trade.