Author(s)

Yujie Yang, Xuemei Wang

Corresponding Author

Xuemei Wang

Abstract

This article compiled the panel data of 253 prefecture-level cities from 2009 to 2019 from the China Economic Net statistical database and the statistical yearbooks of each city, and used the emerging policy evaluation method-synthetic control method to empirically evaluate the Xiamen Free Trade zone from the prefecture level. The establishment has a short-term promotion effect on the regional economy. The empirical results show that the establishment of the Xiamen Free Trade zone can be considered to have a positive effect on the local economy at a significance level of 5%. The overall economy has increased by 1.76 percentage points, the investment effect has increased by 3.32 percentage points, and the level of financial openness an increase of 9.46 percentage points, a significant boost to local economic growth. The trade creation effects of import and export respectively show the characteristics of “one negative and one positive”. Although the free trade zone has problems such as lack of import policy dividends, insufficient competitive advantages of cross-strait trade industries, and insufficient promotion of economic growth by the tertiary industry, it has not fully released its promotion effect, which is still more in line with the functional positioning of the “core zone of cross-strait trade center” and greatly promoted exchanges and in-depth cooperation with the “Maritime Silk”.

Keywords

The belt and road initiative, Free trade zone, Cross-strait integration, Synthetic control method, Counterfactual