Abstract:When studying the economic effect of export quality, literatures focus on "the puzzle of China's trade growth", while insufficient attention has been paid to trade volatility under crisis impact. Based on China customs trade data and industrial enterprises data from 2006 to 2011, this paper adopts a mediation effect model to investigate influences of export quality on export volatility and the action mechanism during the period of financial crisis. It is found that enterprise's export quality negatively affects export volatility during financial crisis, and higher export quality is associated with less export volatility. Income effect of the demand side and diversification effect of the supply side are important channels, via which relatively high export quality suppresses export volatility, and approximately account for 1/2 of the suppression effect.An enterprise with relatively high export quality inhibits export volatility due to a relatively high consumption proportion of a higher-income country, relatively low demand volatility and relatively low market concentration. However, high export quality of enterprises within high-tech industries is related with higher export volatility, since the relatively high demand volatility of the product category during the financial crisis period aggravates export volatility. The conclusion provides theoretical and empirical supports for the trade strategy of "high-quality development" and "structural adjustment for stable growth" under China's new economic normal.

Key words:export quality,export volatility,mediating effect,manufacturing industry