The past two decades have witnessed the dramatic growth of the photovoltaic (PV) industry in China. This study examines the impact of both internal and external forces on China's solar PV export during 2007–2016. The results show that the spatial pattern of PV exports is quite different before and after 2011, with export increasingly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta. The statistical analysis finds that, despite the crucial role of industrial relatedness, th. The past two decades have witnessed the dramatic growth of the photovoltaic (PV) industry in China. This study examines the impact of both internal and external forces on China's solar PV export during 2007–2016. The results show that the spatial pattern of PV exports is quite different before and after 2011, with export increasingly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta. The statistical analysis finds that, despite the crucial role of industrial relatedness, the export of PV products has deviated from historical trajectory of regional product structure with the impact of external forces. Policy incentives are essential in stimulating PV exports by compensating for the shortage of industrial bases in the central and western regions. Trade protectionism has depressed China's PV exports. The eastern region has a better performance in alleviating loss since it has strong industrial bases and can bear trade shock by quickly switching PV production to related sectors. This study suggests the importance of external forces from both domestic and abroad in shaping the development of export-oriented industries in China.••ExportPV productPolicy incentivesTrade protectionismWith regard to climate change, environmental protection, and energy shortage, renewable energy draws worldwide attention. Solar photovoltaic (PV), typical renewable energy, has the largest potential to provide a considerable amount of energy from abundant sunshine resources. Thus, many countries have established supportive policies to flourish PV industry. The past 20 years have witnessed the dramatic growth of China's PV production. Since 2004, the production of PV cell modules in China has enjoyed a growth rate exceeding 100% in five consecutive years (Zhi et al., 2014). In 2007, China became the largest PV producer and accounted for about 29% of world PV production (IEA, 2012). In 2016, China accounted for 52%, 81%, 59%, and 70% of world polysilicon, wafer, cell and module manufacturing capacity, respectively (Ball et al., 2017). Moreover, China's PV manufacturing is an export-oriented industry since the export market consumes about 95% of China's total PV production before 2012 and 68% during 2012–2016 (Letcher and Fthenakis, 2018). How China has achieved such a remarkable growth in PV production and export deserves further exploration.The development of China's PV manufacturing can be divided into three stages, namely 2000–2006, 2007–2011, and after 2011. The initial stage is characterized by the establishment of spearheading firms to meet the boomin. The competitiveness of China's PV products is affected by both internal and external factors. This part briefly introduces industrial relatedness as an internal force that may represent regional industrial base and supply chains. Then external forces, namely policy incentives and trade protectionism, are presented.3.1. Data sourcesThe PV data in 2007–2016 are derived from the trade dataset compiled by the China Customs Trade Statistics (CCTS). The dataset contains records of all transactions passing through Chinese customs and provides firm-level information such as location, ownership, and name. According to the 6-digit international trade harmonized system code (HS code), photovoltaic cells (assembled in modules or made up into panels) are belonging to the category 854,140. However, light-emitting diode (LED), which has been massively produced in many Chinese cities, is also belonging to HS 854140. Thus we apply Chinese 8-digit HS 85414020, a specific category for PV cell and panel, as the code of PV products. After checking each firm's name and deleting those that only trade PV products instead of producing themselves, we obtain 3041 firms from the CCTS. The city-level PV export, industrial relatedness, and location quotient are based on this dataset.PV-oriented policies at the prefectural level are difficult to quantify since policies announced by the local government may come in various forms such as subsidy, loan preference, tax reduction, and export rebate. To make our empirical analysis tractable, we proximate policy by indicators of whether the phrase “PV” shows up in the context of a specific policy at a given year. The data is obtained from the PKU.
