Abstract: This paper examines the theoretical mechanism of the improvement of export quality affecting enterprises’ output volatility from the perspective of the export intensity, and then it conducts an empirical test based on the China customs database and the industrial enterprise database from 2000 to 2013. The findings show that when the enterprise gross output volatility is decomposed into the export volatility and domestic volatility, the improvement of export quality will reduce the export volatility through the increase of export intensity and intensify the domestic volatility. As for the total output volatility, there is a threshold effect on the export intensity: when the export intensity is smaller than 0.411, the improvement of export quality can reduce the total output volatility. The intensive margin of the export quality can reduce the export volatility, and the expansion margin of the export quality can intensify the export volatility and the total output volatility.

Key words: export quality; output volatility; export intensity; the manufacturing industry