讲座预告 | 李广众：Information Frictions and Export Quality

李广众，中山大学商学院院长、教授、博士生导师，主要研究领域集中公司财务，汇率和金融机构管理，研究成果发表在《经济研究》、《管理世界》、Review of Finance等，主持国家社科基金年度重大项目和国家社科基金专项重大项目各一个。

Information accessibility is important for a host of aspects. In this paper, we study the implications of Internet access with a specific focus on product quality. Exploiting an exogenous shock to information frictions, we find consistent and robust evidence that a firm's export quality decreases as information frictions increase. The negative effect is more pronounced for firms facing greater information frictions, for firms located in regions with local web filters, for firms trading with countries with better development of Internet access conditions, and for firms confronted with fiercer product market competition. We also show that the more intensively affected firms become less productive and their capital intensity declines after the shock. Overall, these results suggest that limited access to information may impair a country’s international competitiveness through deteriorating its export quality.