China–US economic and trade relations,trade news,and short-term fluctuation of the RMB exchange rate

The trade war between the US and China affects the fluctuation of RMB exchange rate. We collect news on China–US trade policies and talks from January 2017 to July 2020. Results show that China–US dialogue and tariff imposition have the greatest impact on the percentage of RMB appreciation and depreciation. Additionally, tariff relaxation and increasing enterprise restrictions can cause a sharp appreciation and depreciation. “Policies” events and trade news from the US influence RMB fluctuations the most significantly. Finally, positive events cannot significantly cause RMB appreciation, but negative events can significantly cause RMB devaluation.     

中国农产品产业内贸易现状分析

By using HS classification, the author has divided total agricultural products into 24 categories. The paper calculated the G-L intra-industry trade index, Brülhart marginal intra-industry trade index, and Thom & McDowell marginal industry trade index for each type of agricultural products during the period from 1996 to 2005 in China. The conclusion shows the overall level of agricultural intra-industry trade is relatively low, and Brülhart index indicates China’s agricultural products decades of improvement mainly from inter-industry trade, at the same time Thom & McDowell index shows that China’s agricultural intra-industry trade growth is mainly from the growth of vertical intra-industry trade. __________ Translated from Guoji maoyi wenti 国际贸易问题 (Journal of International Trade), 2008, (1): 14–20     

Does financial development promote International trade?

Using China’s panel data of 30 provinces during 1990–2003, this paper attempts to explore a possible link between financial development and China’s foreign trade. Four indicators are used to identify the role of financial development, which capture both the scale and efficiency feature of China’s regional financial development. The effects of other variables are also investigated, including traditional factor endowments, foreign direct investment, infrastructure and institutional quality, etc. In general, the estimation results suggest that financial development has a quantitatively large and robust effect on China’s manufactured goods trade, among which the financial efficiency indicators play a more significant role in promoting manufactured goods trade than those scale indicators. Sensitivity estimations show that the effect of financial development on China’s total trade essentially differs from that on trade in manufactured goods.      

A monetary model of China–US trade relations

This paper develops a general equilibrium monetary model to study China–US trade relations. The model captures two main features of China–US trade: China's fixed exchange rate regime and the use of the US dollar as the international medium of exchange. The main conclusions of this paper are threefold. First, an improvement in the productivity of China's tradable sector would benefit both China and the US. Second, a RMB appreciation would reduce consumption in the US and increase consumption in China, and would likely reduce China's trade surplus. It would also lead to a contraction in China's tradable sector and an expansion in US's tradable sector. Third, a monetary expansion in the US would hurt China because it would lead to a transfer of wealth from China to the US, a fall in China's relative wage rate and terms of trade, and an artificial expansion in China's tradable sector. A US monetary expansion would also increase China's trade surplus.     

Does China really lose from RMB revaluation? Evidence from some export industries

This study attempts to examine the impacts of Real Exchange Rate (RER) misalignment on China's export performance. Using the SUR methodology coupled with disaggregate panel export data, it shows that China's export sector may not necessarily lose from the Central Government's decision to revalue its RMB against the US dollar because the negative impact of the RER appreciation on Chinese exports may be diluted by the positive impacts attributing to a reduction in the RER misalignment.     

China’s manufacturing performance from a multilateral perspective: 1980–2004

This paper examines international competitiveness of China’s manufacturing industry during the period of 1980–2004 from a multilateral perspective in terms of purchasing power parities, relative price levels, labor productivity and unit labor costs. The various measures of PPPs in China’s manufacturing industry are found to be approximately 3.7 RMB per international dollar in the base year 1997. Since the mid-1980s, the relative price of China’s manufacturing products has been declined and is the lowest compared with the US, UK, Germany, Japan and South Korea. The unit labor cost is found to show a declining trend with some fluctuation. The labor productivity of China’s manufacturing industry is relatively low and is found to converge with other countries since 1992. __________ Translated from Economic Research Journal (经济研究), 2005, (12) (in Chinese)     

Microeconomic analysis on the growth of trade volume in China: 1978–2007

The gravity equation is usually employed by researchers in the field of international trade to explain the growth of a country’s imports and exports volume, especially the manufactured goods. But in China, variables in the model, such as exchange rate, tariff, transportation cost, and spatial distance etc., are not sufficient to explain the riddle of China’s growth in trade volume. In fact, this growth in China’s trade volume is owing to the disintegration of production in the process of economic globalization, to the multinational corporations’ (MNC) vertical outsourcing of their manufacturing processes and procedures, and to the timely readjustment of Chinese enterprises on their strategies of participating in the international intra-product specialization. In this paper we establish an equilibrium model of intra-product specialization dominated by MNCs, and do some empirical tests on the growth in trade volume in China by using the variables including technological conditions of trade, similarity of economies, policy conditions of trade, disintegration of production and level of per capita capital equipment. The empirical results support our basic judgments.     

对外开放与中国经济增长关系的实证研究

Based on an adjusted Solow economic growth model, using econometric tools such as cointegration test and Granger causality test, taking the economic factors such as foreign trade and foreign investment into account, this paper makes regression analysis on the effect of economic opening on China’s economic growth by using the data from 1985 to 2004. The analysis indicates that the domestic capital input is still the primary element that promotes China’s economic growth, by contrast, the effect of foreign trade and foreign investment is faint. It is a bidirectional causality between foreign trade and economic growth, and the adjusting velocity of trade is larger than the foreign direct investment on the balance of the China’s long-time economic growth.      

Effects of trade diversion and trade creation of MERCOSUR on US and world apple markets

Apples are the third most valuable fruit in the United States and account for 18% of US fruit exports. Chile is a major competitor to the United States in the MERCOSUR market, since it is one of the leading apple producing countries and enjoys the tariff reductions as a member of MERCOSUR. Consequently, Chilean exports displace US exports in MERCOSUR. In addition, other MERCOSUR members import more from lower-cost Chile, leading to a reduction in production and an increase in consumption in these countries. This study develops a theoretical and an empirical model of world apple market to quantify the trade diversion and trade creation effects of the MERCOSUR free trade agreement and to estimate the welfare impacts.     

Global trade flows and economic policy uncertainty

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the impacts of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on global trade flows in gauging international trade developments. We employ a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) trade model, augmented with value-added bilateral trade linkages, that allows for quantifying the effects of economy-specific uncertainty shocks on exports and imports of individual economies. We find substantial spatial propagation in the temporal dynamics of international transmission of shocks amidst the manifestations of cross-border global value chains (GVCs) with China’s accession into the WTO. We provide evidence for the significance of EPU of China and the United States, particularly the latter, in influencing global trade flows. Our results show that while the US impacts can largely be attributed to its indirect trade linkages with other economies, the impacts of China can be relegated more to its direct GVC linkages. The findings have implications on trade protectionist inclinations of the current-term US government and the ongoing efforts of China’s policymakers in steering macroeconomic rebalancing for sustainable growth.     

长三角与珠三角对外贸易发展模式的比较研究

Based on a massive collection of data, this paper tries to make a detailed comparison between the foreign trade development patterns of two export-oriented regional economies: the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. It is shown that both of the deltas have made spectacular progress in foreign trade development. However, the Yangtze River Delta is catching up with the Pearl River Delta, and China’s foreign trade development pattern has changed in recent years from a Pearl River Delta-dominated foreign trade environment to a situation in which the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta together dominate China’s foreign trade. The primary difference in the foreign trade development patterns of these two deltas is that foreign trade in the Pearl River Delta relies more on processing trade, while that in the Yangtze River Delta is more government-oriented with special political zones playing a significant role in its foreign trade.      

The impacts of Renminbi appreciation on trade flows and reserve accumulation in a monetary trade model

Given the rapidly growing reserves in Asia (China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) and the pressures from trading partners to revalue, there is a need to examine commercial policy in more than a pure barter model. Here we evaluate the joint impacts of exchange rate appreciation on trade flows and country surpluses using a general equilibrium trade model with a simple monetary structure in which the trade surplus is endogenously determined in the exchange rate setting country and the exchange rate is exogenous. We illustrate its application to the Chinese case using calibration to 2005 data. Our results, while elasticity dependent, suggest that the impacts of Renminbi (RMB) revaluation on the surplus are proportionally larger than on trade flows, and that changes in trade flows can be substantial. Different treatments of China's processing trade have small impact on changes in China's trade flow under RMB appreciation, but significant impacts on the change in the surplus. Results are elasticity dependent; larger substitution elasticities in preferences yield larger effects on trade flows and the surplus.     

汇率、垂直专业化和中美贸易不平衡

人民币的升值并没有导致中国对美国贸易顺差的减少,结合中国参与国际垂直分工,计算整体和行业层面对美国出口的垂直专业指标,并且利用汇改以来的月度数据,检验在垂直专业化条件下的汇率与贸易的关系,结果发现,垂直专业化程度高的行业,汇率的变化对于贸易没有影响;而垂直专业化程度低的行业,人民币的升值对于出口和贸易顺差产生了显著的负面影响。其主要原因是高垂直专业化的行业大量进口中间产品,经过组装以后再出口,其利益主要为跨国企业获得。并且从整体上看中国的出口主要依赖这些行业,所以人民币的升值并没有导致对美国贸易顺差的减少。     

A synthesized discussion on the Macao monetary reform

The prolonged RMB appreciation affects Macao deeply and requires a major monetary reform without further delay. What we propose for Macao reform as an optimal choice includes shifting its monetary anchor to the strong RMB, revaluing its domestic currency to the original level, and setting up a sovereign wealth fund for autonomous growth. This proposal is based on Macao’s economic fundamentals such as trade competitiveness, business relations, real welfare, monetary stability, and genuine development. We also recommend a monetary union of Macao with Hong Kong as the 2^nd-best choice of reform by introducing what we term the SAR dollar.     

The Great Escape: The Multinational Trade Deficit in Historical Perspective

During the Bretton Woods era, the debate surrounding U.S. export sales versus U.S. multinational production focused primarily on the maintenance of pegged exchange rates and labor’s concern over the export of jobs. The collapse of Bretton Woods gave at least the hope that a decline in the dollar would expand exports and limit imports. Yet, the forty-year secular decline in the dollar has been one with a secular expansion of U.S. trade deficits. The older concerns of U.S. multinational sales competing with U.S. exports retain a current relevance. They help explain the unending nature of U.S. trade deficits.     

How Would an Appreciation of the Renminbi and Other East Asian Currencies Affect China's Exports?

China's global current account surplus equaled 9% of Chinese GDP in 2006 and 11% of GDP in 2007. Many argue that a renminbi appreciation would help to rebalance China's trade. Using a panel dataset including China's exports to 33 countries we find that a 10% renminbi (RMB) appreciation would reduce ordinary exports by 12% and processed exports by less than 4%. A 10% appreciation of all other East Asian currencies would reduce processed exports by 6%. A 10% appreciation throughout the region would reduce processed exports by 10%. Since ordinary exports tend to be simple, labor-intensive goods while processed exports are sophisticated, capital-intensive goods, a generalized appreciation in East Asia would generate more expenditure-switching towards US and European goods and contribute more to resolving global imbalances than an appreciation of the RMB or of other Asian currencies alone.     

贸易制度安排下的美国纺织品进口格局

《纺织品和服装协议》完成过渡期后，国际纺织品贸易进入了没有配额限制的自由化贸易时代但是，美国通过双边的、多边的贸易协定和贸易优惠法案对来自某些国家和地区的纺织品和服装给予优惠待遇的贸易制度安排，改变了国际纺织品贸易的流量和流向，扰乱了国际纺织品自由竞争的秩序，影响了美国纺织品进口贸易的格局，直接影响到包括中国在内的WTO成员国的纺织品和服装对美的出口.     

加工贸易的本土增值 对人民币升值影响的放大效应

本文基于2001-2010年中国11个制造业的季度进出口贸易数据,利用面板DOLS方法,分析了人民币升值联合出口品本土增值对一般贸易与加工贸易的影响。研究结果表明,随着中国出口品本土增值度的提升,原本缺乏汇率弹性的加工贸易出口将变得敏感,而加工贸易进口由于与出口存在着“一对一”的关系,因而汇率弹性也表现出显著为负。加工贸易的本土增值将放大人民币有效升值对减少中国贸易顺差的作用,因此,加快国内技术进步,生产更加复杂的中间品,将适当缓解人民币“被迫”持续快速升值的压力。     

Political economy of China’s trade policy: the evidence from industrial protection in 1990s

The theory of the political economy of trade policy, combining public choice and neoclassical trade theories, studies the level and pattern of trade intervention from the perspective of policy decision-making process, by stressing on income distribution instead of economic efficiency. The paper attempts to apply such an endogenous trade theory to an empirical study of China. On the basis of a formal revised model of political economy of trade protection, it tests theoretical hypotheses concerning the political and economic determinants of cross-sector trade protection in the Chinese industry at various periods. The results show that trade protection in China fits into China’s national development strategy of fast catching-up with the developed world.     

美国金融危机对我国进出口贸易冲击的实证研究

中美两国互补型的直接贸易关系紧密,美国金融危机导致美国国内收入水平的下降、美元贬值以及物价水平波动易通过直接贸易溢出对中国进出口贸易状况形成冲击。研究发现,危机通过收入效应对我国贸易状况产生的溢出较弱,而通过价格效应对我国贸易状况产生了明显溢出,并且对我国的出口贸易冲击较大。出口贸易对美国价格水平变化冲击的响应强度、持续时间和衰减方式都发生了显著变化。