Does corporate financialization promote exports?

Corporate financialization has emerged as a pivotal force reshaping the finance–trade nexus and profoundly altering firms’ export trajectories. Using a panel of Chinese A-share non-financial listed firms from 2008 to 2024, this paper empirically examines the effect of corporate financialization on export scale and its underlying mechanisms. We find that financial asset accumulation significantly increases export volumes, and this result remains robust across a battery of sensitivity checks. Channel analyses reveal that the effect operates mainly through alleviating financing constraints and reducing information-acquisition costs. In addition, heterogeneity tests show that export performance is much stronger among firms located in regions with superior innovation environments, firms in industries with low competition, and firms with low technological intensity. The study provides micro-level evidence on the interlinkage between financial asset allocation and real economic activity, offering new insights into the finance-trade-growth chain.