Indoor air quality and health: Empirical evidence from fluoride pollution in China

In this paper we conducted an econometric analysis to investigate the impacts of fluoride pollution on health. Burning high-fluoride-content coal indoors is the primary source of fluoride pollution in Guizhou Province of China. Exploiting longitudinal data from China Health and Nutrition Survey, we applied individual fixed effect models and triple difference models to examine the effects of whether households use coal as domestic fuel. The results showed that fluoride pollution from coal burning significantly increases the diastolic and systolic blood pressure levels of adults. And the pollution also leads to higher likelihood of underweight. Our further analysis indicated that fluoride pollution from coal burning during the infant period greatly reduces the height and weight of children in their childhood and adolescence periods. We also explore the mechanism by investigating the influence of fluoride pollution exposure on birthweight and find evidence that fluoride pollution had a negative impact on prenatal development.     

Trade openness, real exchange rates and job reallocation: evidence from Belgium

This paper investigates the impact of real exchange rate movements on job reallocation at the industry level. The analysis focuses on the manufacturing sector of Belgium, using data for 82 NACE 3-digit industries, over the time span 1996–2002. I find that real exchange rate changes do have a significant impact on job flows, and that this impact is magnified by increasing levels of trade exposure. In particular, a real appreciation is found to lower net employment growth through higher job destruction, while job creation is not significantly affected. These results are in line with previous empirical evidence on the United States, and differ from earlier findings for France and Germany, where the adjustment to real exchange rate shocks has been found to occur mainly through the job creation margin. I suggest that these differences may be explained by the fact that Belgium is a small open economy.     

Trade creation and the status of FTAs: empirical evidence from East Asia

East Asia has been considered a latecomer with respect to Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). Since the turn of the last century, however, FTAs with East Asian participation have seen an intra- and extra-regional expansion. Many trade initiatives have been proposed, negotiated or even implemented. This introduces interesting perspectives for the analysis of trade agreements regarding their anticipatory trade effects. This paper focuses on the trade impact of FTAs at different stages that East Asian economies participate in. The central part of this study is an econometric analysis that applies panel data to the gravity model of international trade flows. We augment the traditional model with variables to estimate trade effects of bilateral and multilateral agreements and year-to-year changes in the stages of their implementation. Our results reveal that there exist anticipatory effects preceding the actual implementation of bilateral FTAs with East Asian participation. Further, anticipation effects are larger for bilateral than for multilateral agreements, possibly because the realisation of bilateral agreements is considered more realistic.     

Earning reduction caused by air pollution: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the effect of air pollution on employees' earnings in China. Using both instrument variable (IV) and regression discontinuity design (RDD), we find that air pollution reduces employees' yearly earnings. A one μg/m³ increase in yearly PM_2.5 decreases employees' yearly earnings by 175.4 CNY. The total loss in earnings for all employees working for our sample firms amounts to about 268.59 million CNY. Our estimations are not sensitive to a battery of different robustness checks. We also find that the effect of air pollution differs based on several factors including labor intensity, ownership types and firm size. Our mechanism tests indicate that air pollution can reduce employees' earnings by lowering their unit wage and reducing their working time. The resulting increase in firms' labor costs further undermines their operating status. Notably, air pollution exerts a non-linear negative effect on employees' earnings. Overall, our findings suggest that air pollution can significantly lower employees' benefits by reducing their earnings. Our paper also provides powerful support for formulating environmental regulations in the future.     

Trade openness and income inequality in China and the SAARC Region

The paper empirically examines the effects of trade liberalisation on income inequality in China and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation countries. Panel data analysis is conducted for the period of 1973 to 2012. The results show that liberal trade policies have increased income inequality in these countries. These results are robust to alternative liberalisation measures. The control variables used have differing effects on income distribution. Per capita income has an increasing effect on income inequality, while education, financial development, financial openness, democracy, and government size are shown to reduce income inequality. These outcomes can be expected to have important policy implications for the use of trade liberalisation in these countries.     

Understanding openness and productivity growth in China: An empirical study of the Chinese provinces

This paper investigates the effects of openness on China's regional productivity growth. We build a model of technology diffusion in which follower economies achieve productivity growth by taking advantage of technology spillovers from the world technology frontier. We hypothesize that China's regional productivity growth is a positive function of regional openness and a negative function of the current level of regional productivity. Empirical analysis in this paper focuses on how openness affects productivity growth in the Chinese provinces. We examine two effects of openness on regional productivity growth in China: the direct growth effect and the convergence effect. By using a variety of panel data regression techniques, we show that the direct growth effect of openness is the main effect while the convergence effect is insignificant. The findings of this paper lend strong support to the claim that the opening-up of China promotes the country's economic growth.     

Trade Destruction and Trade Diversion: Evidence from China

Over the past three decades, we have seen a dramatic increase in the incidence of temporary trade barriers such as antidumping duties and countervailing duties. China has been at the receiving end of a large number of such measures. In this paper, we study how China's exports to its major trade partners have been affected when its major trade partners have used these measures either against China or against other countries. We find that Chinese exports to the country that imposed an antidumping duty decreased by approximately 35 percent. At the same time, an antidumping duty used by the importing country that was directed towards other countries but not against China led to an approximate 30‐percent increase in China's exports to the policy‐imposing country. These results remain robust across various specifications. Our findings have important policy implications. In particular, the magnitude of these effects highlights why it is important to curb the recent widespread use of these barriers.     

Economic openness and trade linkages of China: An empirical study of the determinants of chinese trade intensities from 1993 to 1999

In the 1980s, the Chinese regime took a number of piecemeal steps toward economic liberalization. This process accelerated impressively in the 1990s. This paper reports an empirical study into the determinants of the emerging pattern of Chinese trade (export and import) intensities in the liberalization decade by exploring international trade statistics for 1993 and 1999. Four models are estimated that explain the shifts in the export and import intensities of the trade with different trade partners in the 1993–1999 period. The estimation results reveal differences for export vis-à-vis import trade intentities, as well as for 1993 compared to 1999. For example, the political determinants of trade intensities that were still very important in 1993 have been moved to the background by economic explanations in 1999. JEL no. F14     

Trade and convergence between rich and developing countries: Some empirical evidence on macrodeterminants of specialization

Trade and Convergence Between Rich and Developing Countries: Some Empirical Evidence on Macrodeterminants of Specialization. —A case study is proposed considering trade of Italy with many groups of partners belonging to the EU, to the G-7, to the newly industrializing countries and to the newly exporting countries. Using panel estimation data, they reach the conclusion that standard of living convergence does not favour intraindustry trade among rich countries but it is IIT-biased when considering emerging countries like the NICs. A much more important role is played by country-relative size and price differentials and/or vertical differentiation.     

Trade openness,FDI, and income inequality: Evidence from sub‐Saharan Africa

The motivation for this study stems from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN‐SDGs) and their impact by 2030. The UN highlights 17 SDGs that address pertinent local and global issues, one of which—SDG‐10—has been devoted to reducing inequality. This study investigates the nexus between trade openness, foreign direct investment (FDI), and income inequality in sub‐Saharan Africa using panel data from 2000 to 2015 and the generalized method of moment (GMM) technique approach. The findings show that FDI and income have a negative, statistically significant relationship with income inequality, signifying that as FDI and income per capita increase, the level of income inequality decreases. However, trade openness, education, political stability, corruption, and rule of law have a positive, statistically significant relationship with inequality. This study, therefore, offers some recommendations that will help policymakers. First, develop good policies to attract more foreign investors, which will contribute to creating employment opportunities in the region. Second, create more infrastructures to provide good quality education. Third, implement a good policy to motivate local production which will contribute to creating jobs. Fourth, build a strong institution(s) to fight against corruption.     

Labor market deregulation and globalization: empirical evidence from OECD countries

This paper empirically investigates the influence of globalization on various aspects of labor market deregulation. I employ the data set by Bassanini and Duval (2006) on labor market institutions in OECD countries and the KOF index of globalization. The data set covers 20 OECD countries in the 1982–2003 period. The results suggest that globalization did neither influence the unemployment replacement rate, the unemployment benefit length, public expenditures on ALMP, the tax wedge, union density nor overall employment protection. In contrast, protection of regular employment contracts was diminished when globalization was proceeding rapidly. In fact, domestic aspects, such as unemployment and government ideology are more important determinants of labor market institutions and deregulation processes in OECD countries than globalization. For this reason, working conditions of unskilled workers are not likely to deteriorate and the jobs of unskilled workers are not likely to disappear in the course of globalization. All this is, of course, not to insinuate that globalization has any benign influence on labor market institutions.     

Export variety and export performance: empirical evidence from East Asia

Does product variety matter for export performance? This has been suggested by the new trade theory. In the present paper, we investigate empirically whether increasing export variety has contributed to the export growth of 10 East Asian countries. In the paper we calculate direct measures of export variety and estimate pooled annual export equations for 10 East Asian countries. The econometric results suggest that producing highly differentiated export goods gives a competitive advantage which allows to sell more products.     

Trade integration and regional inequality: a theoretical framework with empirical implications for China

In this paper we present a theoretical framework for studying integration and inequality in China, followed by some empirical discussions of the Chinese regions. Employing the inframarginal methodology, we set up a theoretical framework based on transaction efficiency and comparative advantage in order to explain integration and inequality in developing economies. Our analyses imply that, among other findings, increases in domestic transaction efficiencies tend to reduce welfare inequalities in a developing economy while increases in international transaction efficiencies tend to raise the overall welfare level of a developing economy. These and other related results of this paper may have important implications for developing countries (China) in their policy-making.     

The path towards sustainable finance: Venture capital and air pollution in China

Financing sustainable growth has attracted global attention and discussion in recent years. This study investigates the effect of venture capital, as a potential source of sustainable finance, on air pollution in China from 2003 to 2016. Using the unique Government Guidance Fund as instrumental variable, we find that venture capital activities have significantly reduced local air pollution in cities of China. To be specific, a one standard deviation increase in the VC amount leads to 4% decrease in PM_2.5 concentration and 6% reduction in industrial SO₂ emission. The effects are insensitive to a wide range of robustness tests. Cities characterized by more rigorous environmental supervision, superior business environments, and stronger innovation incentives benefit more from venture capital activities. We further show that venture capital helps improve local air quality by boosting general and green innovation, increasing the investment of new green enterprises, as well as crowding out the investment of polluting industries.     

Indexation and household saving behavior: Some empirical evidence from finnish data

Zusammenfassung Indexierung und das Sparverhalten der privaten Haushalte: Empirische Evidenz aus Finnland. - In diesem Aufsatz werden finnische Daten über indexierte Depositenkonten benutzt, um die Wirkungen der Indexierung auf das Sparverhalten der privaten Haushalte empirisch zu belegen. Die Ergebnisse best?tigen, da\ bei Unsicherheit über die Inflationsrate die Absicherungsmóglichkeit einer voll indexierten Finanzanlage dazu führt, da\ sich der Anteil der indexierten Anlage am gesamten Sparkapital vergró\ert. Diese Folgerung scheint ziemlich stabil zu sein gegenüber verschiedenen N?herungswerten für das private Vermógen, Modifikationen des Grundmodells und der Sch?tzmethoden. W?hrend die Indexierung das Banksparen positiv beeinflu\t hat, konnte kein me\barer Einflu\ auf die Sparquote insgesamt nachgewiesen werden.

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Résumé Indexation et le comportement d’épargne des ménages: Quelque évidence empirique des données finnoises. - Dans cet article des données finnoises concernant des comptes de dépót indexés sont utilisées pour trouver l’évidence empirique sur les effets de l’indexation sur le comportement d’épargne des ménages. Les résultats supportent la vue que la ?hedging? capabilité d’un actif complètement indexé favorise en présence de l’incertitude sur le taux d’inflation l’actif indexé. Cette conclusion semble être assez robuste après qu’ on a utilisé d’autres variables approximatives pour la richesse de ménage et modifié le modèle de base et les méthodes d’estimation. Pendant que l’indexation a fait monter la portion de l’épargne bancaire, il n’y a pas d’effet mesurable sur l’épargne total.

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Resumen Indexación y ahorro de los hogares: evidencia empírica de datos finlandeses. - En este trabajo se utilizan datos de Finlandia sobre depósitos bancarios indizados para obtener evidencia empírica de los efectos de la indexación sobre el ahorro los hogares. Los resultados confirman la noción de que la capacidad de “hedging” de un activo integramente indizado bajo condiciones de inflación incierta causa una realocación através de una demanda de ?hedging? en favor de una parte mayor del activo indizado. Esta conclusión parece bastante robusta con respecto a las ?proxies? para el patrimonio de los hogares, modificaciones del modelo básico y los métodos de estimación. Los resultados empíricos con respecto al efecto sobre la cuota de ahorro no revelaron ning?n impacto mensurable. El ahorro bancario, por otro lado, resultó afectado positivamente.

     

Trade exposure and electoral protectionism: evidence from Japanese politician-level data

Review of World Economics - This study empirically examines the causal impact of economic shocks of trade on trade policy positions by candidates who run for national elections using...     

Air pollution and procyclical mortality: Evidence from China

There is growing evidence that in developed countries, mortality rises (falls) in economic booms (busts). However, little is known about the cyclical pattern of mortality in developing countries. Using China's city-year data, we find that the total mortality in China also exhibits procyclical fluctuations. In exploring the mechanisms, we find that air pollution is one of the reasons for procyclical fluctuations in total mortality. Specifically, economic booms lead to severe air pollution, worsening human health and thus increasing death rates. Moreover, we find that changes in lifestyles may not be an important reason for procyclical mortality in China.