Economic Growth and International Trade: The Case of Hong Kong

This paper estimates the major factors of growth of Hong Kong using a fairly new approach, which allows the direct inclusion of the factors of growth in the growth equation to be estimated. The growth factors that are found to be important for Hong Kong are physical capital accumulation, (negative) growth of unskilled workers, education, technology spillover (from foreign countries) through retained import of capital goods and inward direct investment, and learning‐by‐doing through import and domestic manufacturing production. The results strongly suggest that other than primary factor accumulation, education, trade, and foreign direct investment have contributed a lot to the growth of the economy.     

Capital Mobility and Investor Confidence: The Case of Hong Kong's Reversion to China's Sovereignty

The paper hypothesizes that capital flows to and from Hong Kong in the years prior to its reversion to Chinese sovereignty were determined in part by the credibility of China's economic and political policies towards Hong Kong. During the transition period, several events occurred that caused investors, foreign and domestic, to reexamine and revise their perceptions about concentrating their investment in Hong Kong. These events were the ongoing negotiations between China and Great Britain that resulted in the signing of the Joint Resolution and the Basic Law, the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, and Deng Xaioping's visit to China's southern provinces in 1992. As a result, Hong Kong provides a particularly relevant example of the impact government policies can have on investor confidence and capital mobility.     

The Impact of the China Factor on the pre-1997 Hong Kong Economy: a macroeconometric analysis

After the reunification of Hong Kong and China in 1997, Hong Kong is assured of a high degree of autonomy by the Basic Law. However, there remains some worry about the territory's economic viability and financial stability. Whether Chinese policies and China's remarkable growth momentum could continue to boost Hong Kong's prosperity has become an issue of concern. As the Chinese economic reform proceeds, the ‘China factor’ has been generating an increasing influence on the performance of the Hong Kong economy. Unfortunately, there have been very few rigorous quantitative analyses of this rapidly evolving development. To fill the gap, we have constructed a macroeconometric model of Hong Kong which takes into detailed account the linkages of the two economies including trade and capital flows. Estimation of the model incorporates error correction techniques to establish short-run dynamics and long-run equilibria. Our findings have identified crucial channels through which the ‘China factor’ has exerted impact on the Hong Kong economy. It is shown that the factor was not overwhelming up to the recent past, in terms of its stabilizing effects in the financial market and its stimulation on growth, although its influence may rise in the post-1997 era.     

中国大陆、香港和澳门地区的收入收敛性

香港和澳门在20世纪90年代末作为两个特别行政区回归中国。由于历史的原因,中国大陆的人均收入水平曾远远落后于香港和澳门地区。然而,在过去的30年里,由于中国大陆经济的快速发展以及香港、澳门和中国大陆的投资与人力资源的双向互动,三地经济出现了显著收敛现象。中国大陆的经济成功得益于香港、澳门地区与沿海各省市尤其是广东省在技术溢出、大规模的投资和贸易行为方面的一体化,而经济溢出、投资和贸易行为必定推动经济一体化和收入收敛行为的出现。本文旨在探讨中国大陆与香港、澳门地区的收敛趋势并研究三地收入收敛性的决定因素。本文使用参数和非参数方法定量分析了中国大陆各省市与香港、澳门地区在过去40多年间人均收入的收敛速度问题,结果表明,在经济改革之前,中国大陆、香港与澳门地区不存在人均收入的收敛行为,而在经济改革之后,却出现了显著的绝对和相对收敛。在经济改革期间,如果模型不考虑贸易和对外开放因素,这一收敛速度将不超过0.01,如果考虑贸易和对外开放因素,这一速度则超过0.02。     

THE FIFTH ASIAN DRAGON: SOURCES OF GROWTH IN GUANGDONG, 1979–1994

This paper presents a growth accounting exercise to uncover the sources of spectacular growth in the Guangdong Province in China, the so-called "Fifth Dragon" in Asia, for the post-open-door period 1979–1994. A large fraction of Guangdong's output growth cannot be attributed to the growth in its capital and labor inputs. Of the unexplained residuals, foreign direct investment is a significant growth-spurring engine while export expansion is not. In this sense, China's open door policy did not generate export-led growth although it did stimulate capital accumulation through the importation of foreign capital.
"East Asia has a remarkable record of high and sustained economic growth. From 1965 to 1990 the twenty-three economies of East Asia grew faster than all other regions of the world…. Most of this achievement is attributable to seemingly miraculous growth in just eight economies: Japan; the 'Four Tigers' —Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, China; and three newly industrializing economies (NIEs) of Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand…."     

基于随机前沿生产函数的我国主要省市人力资本与R＆D投资效率实证检验

人力资本和R&D投资一方面促进了经济增长,另一方面又增强了科研主体对外部技术的吸收能力,推动了知识与技术的扩散。本文基于随机前沿生产函数,利用1998—2007年中国29个省市共290个观测数据,通过引入人力资本和R&D投资两个参数,分析人力资本和R&D投资对生产力的直接影响和通过提高技术吸收能力对技术效率的间接影响。结果表明:人力资本在诠释地区间效率差异中扮演着极其重要的角色,它不仅直接影响生产力的提高,而且还通过提高技术吸收能力从而间接影响技术效率;R&D投资对技术效率有重要影响,而对生产力的直接影响并不强。     

香港工业化与工业地理

香港工业是"转移型"工业．因为特殊的历史和市场条件而在战后迅速发展。它的工业主体是出口导向的劳动密集型轻工业。香港自由贸易政策以及优良的港口及服务设施．使这类工业在国际市场上有重要的时效性及低成本的竞争力。1980年初以来,内地开放,使这个工业体系在空间上扩大,与珠江三角洲一起构成"前店后厂"的地域分工。香港工业在稠密的市区亦形成城市工业地理中的新形态、出现密集的、多层式的各类工业企业在狭小空间上混集,以及工、住用途在同一幢建筑内混集。目前香港工业已到必要的转型阶段。政府需要改变其"自由贸易"政策而采用新的、有力的导向型的政策以营造新工业。同时,香港和珠江三角洲在政策上的合作亦极为必要。     

Competition and Competition Policy: Implications of Hong Kong's Reversion to China

The paper explores how Hong Kong's new status as China's Special Administrative Region (SAR) may affect the competitiveness of the industries and the relative position of companies owned by non-Hong Kong investors. The conclusion is that mainland Chinese firms will play an increasingly more important role in Hong Kong's economy and British firms will lose their dominance further. This does not, however, indicate a return to unequal competition in favor of firms from the sovereign country, but the beginning of a period of greater competition by all firms in Hong Kong, whether they be local or non-local. There is a risk that governmental and semi‐governmental corporations of the SAR and other Chinese governments may use their official and semi-official status to tilt the playing field in their favor, but appropriate competition law can address this concern.     

STRATEGIES FOR RAPID ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF HONG KONG

This paper reviews factors that significantly affected Hong Kong's rapid economic development in three consecutive periods: (i) the period of industrialization from 1952 to 1974, (ii) the period of diversification from 1974 to 1980, and (iii) the period of economic integration with China since 1980. The paper discusses the role of Hong Kong's government in the territory's development process, examines the advantages and drawbacks of Hong Kong's development strategy, and analyzes the territory's economic future. The analysis relates Hong Kong's development experience to the "endogenous growth" theory.     

香港联系汇率制度的困境与改革方向

在人民币持续存在升值预期的背景之下,香港联系汇率制度也在经受着考验。香港联系汇率制度的运行存在着几大困境,面对这些困境,港币汇率制度改革的方向应该走人民币化的道路,但改革的路径必须和中国大陆金融市场改革的路径相协调。     

HARD OR SOFT? INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS AND INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING AS DETERMINANTS OF FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN CHINA*

We examine whether hard infrastructure in the form of more highways and railroads or soft infrastructure in the form of more transparent institutions and deeper reforms lead to more foreign direct investment (FDI). We use data on FDI from the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Korea to various regions of China from 1990 to 2002. We control for the standard determinants of FDI—regional market sizes, wage rates, human capital and tax policies. Then we add indices of hard and soft infrastructures. We found that empirically soft infrastructure consistently outperforms hard infrastructure as a determinant of FDI.     

影响中国电子行业出口决定因素的经验分析

本文利用中国电子工业子行业面板数据实证分析1999—2002年期间该行业出口的决定因素,特别是外商直接投资(FDI)的作用。我们发现FDI尤其是来自港澳台的FDI和规模经济对出口有正向作用。我们同时发现国有资本份额与出口负向相关,而资本密集度、研发和人力资本并不是影响中国电子行业出口的重要因素,表明中国的电子企业大多仍处于国际产品分工链的低端。本文有两个原创性贡献:第一是区分不同国别(地区)FDI对中国电子产品出口影响的差异,并发现港澳台地区资本较西方国家资本对中国电子产品出口影响更大;第二是发现劳动力成本水平因素影响FDI对出口作用程度的大小。这些结果具有重要的政策涵义。     

Why the Tigers Roared: Capital Accumulation and the East Asian Miracle

Recent growth accounting studies of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea have found that the Solow residuals in these economies were relatively small. Given the high capital contributions, these results are often interpreted as evidence that factor accumulation, savings and investment were the principal cause of the East Asian miracle. This paper develops an alternative method of analysing these data, combining growth accounting methods with the linearized neoclassical growth model of Mankiw et al. (1992). The method explicitly quantifies the extent to which increases in productivity, as measured by the Solow residual, induced capital accumulation in these economies. It shows that in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea, productivity growth contributed between half and two-thirds of the growth in GDP per worker over a 20-year period.     

The China–United States Bilateral Trade Balance: How Big Is It Really?

There are huge discrepancies between the official Chinese and US estimates of the bilateral trade balance. The discrepancies are caused by different treatments accorded to re-exports through Hong Kong, re-export markups, and trade in services. Deficit-shifting between China, on the one hand, and Hong Kong and Taiwan, on the other, owing to direct investment in China from Taiwan and Hong Kong, is partly responsible for the growth in the China–US bilateral trade deficit. The 1995 China–US bilateral balance of trade in goods and services, adjusted by both re-exports and re-export markups, may be estimated as US$23.3 billion, a large deficit but considerably smaller than the often-cited official US figure of US$33.8 billion.     

中国吸引FDI区位因素实证分析

近年来,随着国际资本流动的愈加频繁迅速,流向中国的外商直接投资越来越多,而FDI在中国经济增长中发挥着发动机的作用。东道国吸引FDI流入的因素有很多,如资源优势、宽松稳定的社会环境等。采用中国1983-2006年的Panel Data数据,在计量方法上采用的是加入虚拟变量的普通最小二乘法并结合格兰杰因果检验,发现FDI累计投资额、市场规模及制度因素促进了FDI的流入,而人力资本、市场开放度对FDI的流入无积极影响。并给出相关的政策建议。     

Human capital, economic growth, and regional inequality in China

We show how regional growth patterns in China depend on regional differences in physical, human, and infrastructure capital as well as on differences in foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. We also evaluate the impact of market reforms, especially the reforms that followed Deng Xiaoping's “South Trip” in 1992 those that resulted from serious hardening of budget constraints of state enterprises around 1997. We find that FDI had a much larger effect on TFP growth before 1994 than after, and we attribute this to the encouragement of and increasing success of private and quasi-private enterprises. We find that human capital positively affects output and productivity growth in our cross-provincial study. Moreover, we find both direct and indirect effects of human capital on TFP growth. These impacts of education are more consistent than those found in cross-national studies. The direct effect is hypothesized to come from domestic innovation activities, while the indirect impact is a spillover effect of human capital on TFP growth. We conduct cost-benefit analysis of hypothetical investments in human capital and infrastructure. We find that, while investment in infrastructure generates higher returns in the developed, eastern regions than in the interior, investing in human capital generates slightly higher or comparable returns in the interior regions. We conclude that human capital investment in less-developed areas is justified on efficiency grounds and because it contributes to a reduction in regional inequality.     

VEHICULAR EMISSIONS AND CONTROL POLICIES IN HONG KONG

This paper briefly analyzes the state of vehicular pollution and control measures in Hong Kong. Vehicular emissions contribute largely to Hong Kong's air pollution and will become more important as the vehicle fleet expands. Hong Kong is unique in that a large fraction of its vehicles use diesel engines. The analysis here explicitly accounts for the composition of emissions and quantifies the relative magnitude of emissions by each of the five main sources: private cars, taxis, light buses, heavy buses, and lorries. The paper analyzes alternative pollution control policies with respect to effectiveness and efficiency.     

债务融资、成长性与企业投资行为——对A股和香港上市公司的比较研究

本文以A股和香港上市公司为研究对象,考察债务融资和成长性对企业投资行为的影响。实证结果表明,企业债务与投资支出显著负相关,在低成长性公司中这一关系尤为显著。在低成长性公司中,A股上市公司的债务融资与投资支出的负相关关系比香港上市公司显著,香港中资上市公司的债务融资与投资支出的负相关关系比香港本地上市公司显著。     

Why is U.S. direct investment in China so small?

While the United States is the largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the world, and China is the largest FDI recipient among developing countries, U.S. direct investment (USDI) in China has been surprisingly small. This article investigates the determinants of USDI through a relative-demand model with time-series data. Evidence presented in this article indicates that the small USDI cannot be fully appreciated without understanding differences between USDI and Hong Kong direct investment (HKDI), the latter being the dominant source of FDI in China. Empirical results suggest that the USDI in China was primarily motivated by market access and that the HKDI was export oriented. The small USDI thus is a result of U.S. investors' preference for market access and China's export-promotion FDI regime, along with the troubled Sino-U.S. relations and political instabilities in China.     

风险投资对提高公司成长期权的价值——来自创业板上市公司的经验证据

以成长期权作为衡量公司投资效率与未来发展潜力的指标,从风险投资机构为企业提供投资指引增值服务的视角,利用2009—2010年我国创业板上市公司的数据,采用加权最小二乘法估计回归模型,探究风险投资机构对我国风险企业的引导作用及其投资动机。结果显示:风险投资机构的参与、数量以及持股比例均显著降低公司成长期权的价值;多家风险投资机构同时参与具有合谋套利的行为表现,追逐资本的快速增值是风险投资机构的主要投资动机。这说明目前我国风险投资机构并未切实发挥改善风险企业的融资环境和管理水平的积极效应。