Abstract: Using China’s transaction-level trade data and firm-level production data during 2000—2006, this paper firstly estimates the duration of Chinese industrial enterprises’ waiting for exporting. The results show that the average duration of waiting for exporting is 4.7 years and the median one is 5 years. Besides, the hazard rate of export entry has a prominent positive duration dependence. Then, this paper uses Cox proportional hazards model to analyse the impact of export cutoff productivity on duration of waiting for exporting. The result indicates that the rising of productivity threshold will significantly prolong the duration of waiting for exporting, and this conclusion is supported by a variety of robustness tests. In addition, the estimation result of hazard ratio shows that every 1% increase in productivity threshold will lead to a 0.2827% decrease in the hazard rate of firms’ export entry. Moreover, this study shows that there exists a significant heterogeneity in ownership, industrial and regional influences on duration of waiting for exporting. Further, this paper finds that China’s accession to the WTO helps to weaken the threshold effect of export cutoff productivity on duration of enterprises’ waiting for exporting, while the rising of uncertainty will aggravate this effect. This study indicates that it should be a focus of the government to actively promote the establishment of bilateral and multilateral free trade zones, to create a stable business environment for enterprises and to reduce the uncertainty in markets.

Key words: export cutoff productivity, duration of waiting for exporting, heterogeneity, uncertainty