An empirical study about the impacts of China's accession to the WTO on the telecommunications industry in China

Post‐China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), China's telecommunication industry now needs to face a much stronger competition in a relatively open market that has a number of diverse rivalries. There are specific benefits and risks associated with both domestic telecommunication (telecom) companies and foreign investors in the telecommunication or information technology area. To meet with these new challenges and take advantage of the competitive, strategic advantages to penetrate the market, both China's telecom industry and foreign investors must understand the impacts of China's accession to the WTO on its telecommunication industry and hence make the necessary adjustments and/or implementation improvements. In specific, we carefully examine the impacts such as prices, quality, and local protectionism in this article. We draw the findings based on the data collected from a survey and the resulting statistic analysis.     

Firm R&D,Processing Trade and Input Trade Liberalisation: Evidence from Chinese Firms

This paper examines the impact of input trade liberalisation on firm R&D activity by taking China's accession to the WTO as a quasi‐natural experiment. Different from ordinary imports, processing imports in China enjoy zero tariffs and are not affected by input trade liberalisation due to the WTO accession. The paper uses disaggregated firm‐level production data and transaction‐level trade data to perform difference‐in‐difference analysis by taking processing import firms as a control group. An intensive empirical search shows that after China's accession to the WTO, input trade liberalisation fostered firm R&D significantly. The findings are robust to different measures and various empirical specifications.     

Hong Kong's industrial success: an entrepreneurial perspective

This article examines the role of entrepreneurship in the industrialization of Hong Kong. Kirzner's concept of entrepreneurship is applied to explain the industrial dynamics of the economy. Using the electronics industry as illustration, this article argues that Hong Kong's manufacturing industry has been driven principally by adaptive entrepreneurship, which takes the form of small-scale enterprise, product imitation, subcontracting and spatial arbitrage. Furthermore, those firms adopting imitative strategies were able to survive, though many of them relied on very small profit margins. Radical innovative strategies were seldom adopted and were not feasible in the environment of Hong Kong. Adopting adaptive entrepreneurial strategies, Hong Kong's manufacturers learned from foreign firms and imitated their products. Later, by exporting improved commodities at lower prices, they competed against the original suppliers from economically more advanced countries. This constitutes Hong Kong's industrial success.     

FDI and Industrial Restructuring in Post‐WTO Greater PRD: Implications on Regional Growth in China

This paper aims at studying the investment flows in the Greater Pearl River Delta region (Hong Kong‐PRD) in China and its impacts on industrial restructuring at the firm‐level using a business survey with the Hong Kong‐PRD entity acted as a core‐periphery economy. The critical effects of gravity distance on transaction costs in the determination of investment flows are examined statistically by a gravity model by incorporating a hypothetical infrastructural construction project. Survey findings show that the evolution of the cross‐border operations at the main core has directed the outward FDI flows and the subsequent industrial structural adjustments of the core‐periphery economy. This paper has presented a typical illustrative case for further studies of investment flows and its impacts upon industrial adjustments and performance in other regions in China especially after the WTO accession. Its implication on regional economic growth is also discussed.     

The WTO and entry modes in China

For years, multinational enterprises (MNEs) vying for the Chinese market used joint ventures (JVs) as an entry mode. However, there has been a growing frustration with the JV mode. It is reported that MNEs are increasingly opting for wholly owned subsidiaries for better control. This article examines the recent development of the business environment in China. It concludes that there are now real entry options for MNEs, including exporting, JVs, wholly owned subsidiaries, and acquisitions. China's accession into the World Trade Organization (WTO) will accelerate the change process and make non‐JV options even more viable. A few decision rules for choosing an entry mode in China are discussed. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The interface of market and nonmarket strategies: Political ties and strategic competitive actions

We focus on corporate political connections as a critical nonmarket strategy and propose that political ties can facilitate firms’ strategic competitive actions but may also hurt the outcomes of such actions, depending on whether the ties are associated to central versus local political actors. Studying China's television manufacturers at the onset of deregulation and globalization, we find that central and local political ties have contrasting effects on firms’ competitive actions and their performance outcomes. To further shed light on theoretical mechanisms, we examine the impact of China's WTO accession on firm actions and contrast domestic-based and internationalization competitive actions.     

Geographic Concentration and China's Agricultural Export Instability

This paper investigates the impacts of geographic concentration on China's agricultural export instability with a multiple‐region variance decomposition approach. The decomposition results suggest that China's agricultural export concentration into the Japanese market greatly lowers agricultural export instability, while concentration into the Hong Kong, South Korea, ASEAN, the US, and Russian Federation markets increases export instability. China's exports to the EU also lower its agricultural export instability. Further decomposition results indicate that the impacts of geographic concentration on different agricultural product export instabilities are different.     

Hong Kong after 1997: The question of sovereignty

Ever since British-Chinese negotiations over the return of Hong Kong began in 1982, there has been a dialogue of the deaf about Hong Kong's future, Overholt provides a thorough overview of the historical, political economic, social and legal issues regarding Hong Kong's transition and of China's self-interest in Hong Kong's major functions as an airlock, entrepot, financial center, regional headquarters and manufacturer. Through his careful discussion of the foreseeable problems, Overholt reaches the conclusion that hong Kong is “useful pretty much the way it is” to China and doesn't see China disturbing the balance.     

Globalization and wage inequality: Evidence from urban China

This paper examines the impact of globalization on wage inequality using Chinese Urban Household Survey data from 1988 to 2008. Exploring two trade liberalization shocks, Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour in 1992 and China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, we analyze whether regions more exposed to globalization experienced larger changes in wage inequality than less-exposed regions. Contrary to the predictions of the Heckscher–Ohlin model, we find that the WTO accession was significantly associated with rising wage inequality. We further show that both trade liberalizations contributed to within-region inequality by raising the returns to education (the returns to high school after 1992 and the returns to college after 2001).     

China and the WTO: The implications of membership in historical context

China's accession to the WTO can be seen as the culmination of not just a 15‐year negotiation but also of a process that actually began 150 years ago with the projection of Western imperialist power into the Chinese mainland. China now appears to have joined the global community on mutually agreeable terms. The commitments China has made are significant and, if implemented, will facilitate continued change in the nation's legal/regulatory structure for economic growth. WTO accession has many implications, both economic and political, for China and the rest of the world; it is important not to forget historical context and current realities in assessing them. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Trade liberalisation and domestic brands: Evidence from China's accession to the WTO

In this paper, we examine how trade liberalisation affects firms' branding behaviours. We investigate this question with China's accession to the WTO in late 2001. We find that firms in sectors with large import tariff reductions discontinue more trademarks. Meanwhile, these firms file more trademark applications and their total number of effective trademarks increases after trade liberalisation. This growth in trademarks is mainly driven by large firms, as measured by the number of employees. In fact, small firms' applications and effective trademarks decline during trade liberalisation. It is also found that trademark applications are mainly filed for the traditionally non-dominant products of industries. We provide a conceptual model that incorporates the channels through which both passive and active responses occur.     

人民币新汇率下浙江纺织品出口之应对策略

浙江是纺织大省,纺织品出口总额位居国内前列。全球纺织品配额的取消曾给浙江纺织业注入短暂的活力,但随之而来的“特保”措施与人民币升值使浙江纺织品出口处于双重压力之下。本文从浙江纺织品出口近况、人民币升值所带来的影响及问题加以剖析,最后提出若干应对策略措施。     

Small Firm Marketing in China: A Comparative Study

This paper examines the influence of Chinese cultural values on marketing practices in different socio-cultural settings and business contexts, for example the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and China. 20 Chinese small firms in China were selected and their owner-managers were interviewed. Findings of interviews undertaken by Brooksbank et al. (1992) with 20 British small firm chief marketing executives, and Siu (1997) with 26 Chinese owner-managers in Hong Kong, were collated to form a database for comparison purposes. The research results suggest that the specific marketing practices of Chinese small firms in mainland China are different from those of their counterparts, for example, British and Hong Kong Chinese small firms. A tentative model is developed explaining the factors that appear likely, on the basis of this research, to affect the marketing performance of small firms in China.     

后配额时代中国纺织品贸易面临的问题与应对措施

根据乌拉圭回合达成的《纺织品与服装协定》,自2005年1月1日起纺织品配额取消,中国纺织品行业迎来了纺织品贸易的“后配额时代”。文章分析了后配额时代,中国纺织品行业面临的来自国外和国内的挑战,并从政府和企业两个层面提出了应对措施。     

证券市场选择是否影响公司业绩与价值?--来自中国房地产行业的经验证据

企业在不同资本市场之间的选择往往是上市过程中一个重要决策。上市地点是否会影响其后续业绩表现以及价值？文章基于中国内地房地产企业数据的研究发现,在中国香港上市的企业比在中国内地上市的企业经营业绩更优,而两者在股市价值上并无显著差别。另外,在(中国)香港上市的房地产企业中,国有企业股市价值低于非国有企业;而在中国内地上市的房地产企业中,国有企业股市价值高于非国有企业。研究结果说明,证券市场完善的监管有利于降低代理人问题,提高企业经营业绩。     

Input tariff liberalisation and servitisation in manufacturing: Evidence from China's WTO accession

This paper links the sharp drop in China's manufacturing servitisation (MS) in early 21st century to China's accession to WTO featured by conspicuous input trade liberalisation (ITL). The results show that manufacturing industries exposed to higher degree of ITL suffer more MS declines after China's accession to the WTO. Heterogeneous analysis shows that industries with high import intensity, capital intensity or technology intensity suffer more MS declines following input trade liberalisation. Further analysis shows that input trade liberalisation increases the import of intermediate inputs while significantly reduces the proportion of service imports for manufacturing industries. The results are robust to a series of robustness checks.     

加入WTO后中国政府采购的对策分析

政府采购目前受到国际社会的广泛重视 ,其对一国的产业发展和对贸易产生巨大影响。中国加入WTO后 ,将逐步面临政府采购市场的激烈竞争。回顾政府采购的历史渊源和发展 ,介绍WTO的《政府采购协议》 ,探讨我国政府和企业在加入WTO后如何应对未来政府采购市场的开放 ,利用政府采购国际规则保护自身利益。     

参加WTO香港会议的感受与启迪

作者于2005年12月13日到18日参加了WTO在我国香港举办的第六届部长级会议。根据亲身感受写出本文。第一,描述了《香港部长宣言》的产生与内容,指出其重要性。第二,总结了我国在WTO香港会议中的作用和收获。第三,介绍香港会议期间有关WTO的国际研讨会内容,国内研讨与之相比的差距。     

Trade liberalisation and labour shares in China

We estimate the extent to which firms responded to tariff reductions associated with China's WTO entry by altering labour's share of value. Firm‐level regressions indicate that firms in industries subject to tariff cuts raised labour's share relative to economy‐wide trends, both through input choices and rent sharing. Our estimates suggest that, on average, an industry that experienced no reductions in output or input tariffs would have a 15.7% lower labour share of value in 2007 than it actually did, assuming the same economy‐wide trends. There is significant variation across firms: the impact attenuates with geographic remoteness and union presence and strengthens with foreign ownership.