ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area: A Bane or Boon for ASEAN Countries?

At the ASEAN Summit in November 2000, the leaders of ASEAN and China agreed to enhance economic cooperation and integration with the goal of establishing an ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area (FTA). This decision was a natural response to a number of important global and regional developments of the past decade. Since the signing of the framework agreement, policymakers from China and ASEAN member states have already started their negotiations on the specific terms and features for this proposed FTA. While such an FTA would hold the potential of yielding enormous economic benefits, it also causes some sense of apprehension and uncertainty in some quarters, due to the common perception that China is already a strong competitor in trade and attracting foreign investment. To examine the economic basis for such concern, this paper analyses the economic implications of this proposed free trade area from the ASEAN economies’ perspective. Specifically, it examines how competitive ASEAN countries are vis‐à‐vis China, evaluate the scope for strengthening China‐ASEAN trade and the impediments facing Chinese and ASEAN investors in each other's markets, and recommends policy measures to maximise the benefits and minimise the hardships resulting from an ASEAN‐China FTA.     

中国与欧盟和东盟的贸易特点及影响因素比较——基于引力模型的实证分析

本文首先比较了中国与两大区域经济集团——欧盟和东盟的贸易特点,然后通过引力模型分析了影响中国与欧盟和东盟贸易的因素,并就各个因素所带来影响的不同进行了对比。结果表明,中国与东盟贸易的GDP弹性较大,而中国与欧盟贸易的人均GDP弹性较大。本文认为,前者的原因在于中国与东盟贸易更具潜力,后者主要是因为中国与欧盟的贸易互补性更强。     

Possible Dynamic Effects of AFTA for the New Member Countries

We discuss the possible dynamic benefits of economic integration for the new members of ASEAN. Direct evidence on regional integration and growth is weak, but three indirect channels are possible. Openness increases access to foreign knowledge, which could help productivity growth. Trade liberalisation is likely to stimulate investment and might promote the integration of the regional production network. Binding liberalisation under AFTA would help ‘lock‐in’ and accelerate liberal economic reforms. These gains are not automatic, however. Discriminatory liberalisation will switch imports from sources with high stocks of knowledge towards ASEAN countries, which have lower stocks, and so may lower productivity growth. We term this ‘dynamic’ trade diversion. In addition, local absorptive capabilities must be developed to benefit fully from technology transfer. Finally, we recommend extending AFTA commitments on an MFN basis in order to avoid static and dynamic trade diversions.     

Are Exports of China,Japan and Korea Diverted in the Major Regional Trading Blocs?

In recent years China, Japan and Korea, the three major economies in East Asia, have been gearing up their efforts to sign free trade agreements with many different regions and countries. One of the main reasons for this is that they fear that with a regionalism movement rising in every corner of the world, their exports are discriminated against and diverted in the trading blocs of other nations. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate whether this is a real fear. We utilise the gravity equation augmented with dummy variables for regional trading blocs in three different specifications. One is the static, standard gravity model to examine the effect of regional blocs on the ‘level’ of exports from these three countries in 2003; the second is the fixed effects and random effects panel models for the period 1993–2003; and the third is the dynamic, partial‐adjustment model to examine the effect of blocs on the ‘changes’ in exports between 1993 and 2003. The results show that trade diversion is observed only for China's exports in EU, EFTA and EAEC, but no diversion effect is observed for Japan's and Korea's exports in any of the major trading blocs. On the other hand, trade creation is observed for exports from China in ASEAN, for exports from Japan in ASEAN, CACM, CARICOM, EAEC, EU and NAFTA, and for exports from Korea in ASEAN, CACM, EAEC and MERCOSUR. Thus, Japan's and Korea's fear of discrimination and trade diversion is ungrounded, while China's fear is grounded only to a limited extent.     

Does Economic Diplomacy Work? A Meta‐analysis of Its Impact on Trade and Investment

We review the literature on economic diplomacy and provide a meta‐analysis of 32 empirical studies published in 1986–2011 that deal with the trade and investment impact of economic diplomacy (embassies, consulates, other diplomatic facilities, investment and export promotion offices, trade and state visits). Controlling for differences in research design, methodology, time frame and manner of data, we find a positive and significant effect of economic diplomacy on international economic flows with the exception of state visits and that this is true in a sample of 627 t‐statistics analysed with OLS and for a larger sample of 963 reported significance levels analysed with logit thus illustrating robustness with respect to sample and estimation technique. Our analyses show that reported effects of economic diplomacy on trade and investment in individual studies are sensitive to model specification. The primary studies that investigate only one source country are less likely to report significant positive effects. Compared to other sciences, economic studies are less likely to report significantly positive effects of economic diplomacy. Primary studies lump embassies and consulates (general) into one indicator miss that these instruments differ significantly. Embassies, consulates and agencies should thus be included as separate instruments in future research.     

Do Economic Integration Agreements Actually Work? Issues in Understanding the Causes and Consequences of the Growth of Regionalism

This paper argues that the ‘competitive liberalisation’ of national governments of the past several decades has created a ‘market’ for regional economic integration agreements (EIAs). Evidence shows that countries that have selected into EIAs – such as free trade agreements – have ‘chosen well’ in the sense that the same economic characteristics that explain and predict bilateral EIAs also explain and predict bilateral trade flows. We show that previous ex post empirical evaluations of the effects of EIAs on trade have tended to underestimate the effects due to ignoring the (endogenous) self‐selection bias of country pairs into EIAs. Accounting for this bias, we find that European economic integration had a much larger impact on trade over the period 1960–2000 than previously found, and other more recent EIAs have had economically and statistically significant effects on members’ trade. The results shed further light on understanding the causes and consequences of the growth of regionalism.     

‘Best Practices’ in Regional Trading Agreements: An Application to Asia

Regionalism in Asia, particularly in the form of free‐trade areas (FTAs), is a recent trend that is becoming increasingly important. This has been disturbing to many, given the significance of trade and investment in Asian economic growth and development and the region's key role in global commerce. In light of this trend, the goal of this paper is to develop a blueprint, or a set of 10 ‘best practices’, that can be used as a guide to FTAs in order to ensure that they approximate first‐best outcomes to the greatest extent possible. Next, the paper applies this framework to the existing FTAs between Asian countries and their regional and extra‐regional partners. The results suggest that the more advanced regional accords generally receive high grades, with the notable exception of rules of origin, which tend to be even more problematic in the context of accords in which an OECD country is a party.     

Trade Policies in Southeast Asia in the Wider Asian Perspective

This paper takes stock of trade policies in Southeast Asia after the Asian crisis and in the wake of the current global economic crisis. It compares trade policies in individual Southeast Asian countries; places them in the context of regional and global economic integration; and particularly draws implications for the region from the rise of China and India. The first section looks at recent trade and FDI patterns in Southeast Asia. Then follows an overview of key trade‐policy trends, in the region overall and in individual countries. The next sections examine ASEAN countries in international trade negotiations and agreements: first in the WTO, especially in the Doha Round; then within ASEAN; and finally on cross‐regional FTAs. The paper concludes that ASEAN countries cannot rely on external tracks ‘from above’ for meaningful trade policy reform. Since the Asian crisis there has been a slowdown of reform momentum, and too much reliance on trade negotiations – especially FTAs. Rather, countries in the region have to rely on themselves –‘from below’ as it were. The engine of liberalisation and regulatory reform has to be home‐driven – as it was before the Asian crisis – with governments taking unilateral measures in response to internal and external conditions.     

Free Trade Areas in East Asia: Discriminatory or Non‐discriminatory?

The debates on regional trade arrangements in East Asia focus on whether the RTAs can be net trade creating or diverting, and whether they impede multilateral trade liberalisation or not. This paper attempts to answer these questions by quantitatively estimating the economic impact of possible East Asian free trade areas based on a bilateral gravity model, and evaluating the main characteristics of the proposed FTAs. We find that the trade creation effect expected from the proposed East Asian FTAs such as a China‐Japan‐Korea or an ASEAN plus three (China, Japan, Korea) FTA will be significant enough to overwhelm the trade diversion effect. We also judge that East Asian FTAs will likely be a building block for a global free trade.     

The Regulation of Professional Migration: Insights from the Health and IT Sectors in ASEAN

This paper develops several indicators to measure the extent and depth of rules governing international migration. It is set in the context of moves towards further liberalisation of services trade and associated labour mobility (Mode 4) under GATS and related regional trading arrangements. Ten Southeast Asian countries at various stages of economic development are examined as a case study, with special reference to health care and information technology. These sectors are priority sectors for regional cooperation in services trade in ASEAN, but were expected to represent opposite extremes in terms of the regulation of migration. The study finds that the more advanced countries tend to have more liberal regimes for international movements of skilled manpower, although there were smaller differences regarding general visa and work permit arrangements. Generic restrictions on mobility were related to trade policies, as well as to direct barriers (often country‐specific) to migration. They included minimum salary requirement, levies on foreign workers, economic needs tests, and limitations related to language, education and job experience. Controls were more extensive in the health care sector, related to social considerations as well as professional organisational interests.     

The ‘Real’ Impact of GATT/WTO – a Generalised Approach

Rose’s result in 2004 that GATT/WTO has no significant impact on bilateral trade triggered off a series of empirical studies. Each of those studies augments Rose’s paper in one specific methodological aspect with the general finding that GATT/WTO significantly fosters members’ trade, although the estimated impact varies between 2 per cent and 195 per cent of trade creation. We combine the methodological contributions of previous studies to overcome these isolated approaches, to account for possible interactions and to develop a more general view on the impact of GATT/WTO. In particular, we find that GATT/WTO promotes members’ trade by around 86 per cent.     

东盟宪章与中国-东盟经贸关系发展

东盟宪章是东盟成立40多年来第一份对所有成员国具有普遍法律约束力的文件,它的生效会对中国-东盟经贸关系的发展产生重大影响。本文在对东盟宪章评析的基础上,重点分析东盟宪章生效对中国-东盟经贸关系的积极作用和消极影响,提出在东盟宪章生效后我国应采取强化政治互信、增强贸易互补性、实施投资东盟战略和主动推动CAFTA发展的应对措施。     

ASEAN between globalization and regionalization

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this article is to test the hypothesis that the ‘ASEAN way’ is different from other regional integration schemes, as measured by the relative importance of its de facto regionalization patterns, the importance of its ASEAN+ frameworks, and its globalization-regionalization nexus. A set of indicators using intra- and extra-regional flow data of various sorts are explored and used to compare the ASEAN integration experience with some benchmark cases worldwide. Four aspects are thereby considered: (1) globalization and economic openness, (2) trade liberalization, (3) regional production sharing, and (4) foreign investment promotion.     

中国与东盟农产品贸易:特征及结构变化趋势

自从2002年中国与东盟签署了《中华人民共和国农业部与东南亚国家联盟秘书处农业合作谅解备忘录》以来,中国加强了与东盟农业领域的经贸往来与合作,双方都把农业确定为重点合作的领域之一。分工合作是国家之间经贸关系往来的主流和发展趋势,为了减少中国和东盟相互之间的竞争和摩擦,加强经济贸易合作,中国有必要调整自己不够合理的出口产品结构。本文界定了农产品的范围并对农产品进行科学的分类,进而分析了中国和东盟农产品贸易的结构特征及发展趋势,并在研究结论的基础上提出了改进中国农产品出口的建议。     

《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》的经济效应及产业产出分析

为进一步推进《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》进程,东盟及中国、日本、韩国、澳大利亚、新西兰、印度等亚太地区的各个经济体通过“抱团”的方式增强亚太地区的经济实力,提高国际贸易的话语权。本文分析《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》成员在亚太地区的经济规模以及各个成员经济体的产业竞争优势,运用GTAP9.0数据库和一般均衡模型,以逐步降低《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》内部成员之间关税水平的方式,探讨《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》成员的宏观经济及产业产出情况。随着《区域全面经济伙伴关系协定》成员内部关税水平的逐步降低直至零关税水平,成员经济体的进出口贸易、福利水平等方面都有不同程度的增加,中国、日本、韩国、澳大利亚、新西兰等国的国内经济产出增加、贸易条件得到改善,而印度和东盟的国内经济出现一定程度的负效应、贸易条件出现小幅恶化现象;同时,各个成员方的产业互补优势更加明显。     

对中国-东盟自由贸易区进出口贸易的实证分析

通过运用贸易引力模型,对影响中国与东盟自由贸易区的双边贸易的因素,特别是自由贸易区的建设对双边贸易的影响进行实证分析。探讨中国与东盟各国之间的贸易关系以及中国-东盟自由贸易区的建设对中国与东盟各国之间的双边贸易所产生的影响具有十分重要的意义。     

Exchange Rate Volatility and Intra‐Asia Trade: Evidence by Type of Goods

This paper examines the impact of intra‐Asia exchange rate volatility on intra‐Asia trade in primary goods, intermediate goods, equipment goods and consumption goods from 1980 to 2009. For Asia, the evidence shows that as intraregional exchange rate volatility increases, intraregional exports in these goods fall. This adverse impact is even more pronounced in the subregion of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)+5 comprising ASEAN member countries plus the People's Republic of China; Hong Kong, China; Japan; the Republic of Korea; and Taipei, China; and especially among intermediate and equipment exports. Again, the impact magnifies in an even smaller subgroup excluding the smaller ASEAN economies. These results underline the significant impact of exchange rate volatility on the region's production networks. For South Asia, however, exchange rate volatility appears to have a positive impact on exports. Still, caution is warranted given that South Asian economies trade relatively little with each other.     

东盟贸易发展动态(1990～2007)：全球性和区域性

文章集中研究1990～2007年东盟国家贸易发展问题,得出自由化背景下东盟贸易发展的全球性和区域性特征.通过引入和建立全球层面的出口依存度、贸易贡献度和贸易自由度,区域层面的区域内贸易集中度、贸易地区倾向性和贸易伙伴排名等六个指标,全面研究东盟贸易发展问题,并对中国对东盟发展经贸关系提了几点看法.     

Trade,Technology and Human Capital: Stylised Facts and Quantitative Evidence

Stylised evidence on trade, total factor productivity (TFP) and skill intensity of the labour force is presented. Features emerging as salient are: growing trade in technology‐intensive products from the industrialised nations to the relatively laggard nations leads to embodied technology diffusion; the technology‐intensive sectors have larger shares of skilled workers; countries experiencing TFP growth usually have higher levels of educational attainment; also, the skilled labour payment share for a sector is positively associated with that sector’s regional trade share. These facts together help explain why endowment of more skilled labour facilitates absorption of technology ferried via trade.