Who will Meet China’s Import Demand for Forest Products?

Via computable general equilibrium modeling we find that as a result of economic growth, Yuan appreciation, and logging restrictions in China, China’s imports and exports of forest products would dramatically increase, and China’s imports would have displacement effects as timber-exporting countries would increase their exports to China while reducing their shipments to other countries. Such displacement effects would make pressure on forests in supplying countries less than they otherwise might be. Global economic growth is a dominant driving force for China’s imports. Russia, Southeast Asia, and Africa would remain major foreign suppliers of logs to China, while supply sources for Chinese imported lumber and paper products would be relatively diverse.     

The Challenge of Globalization for Large Chinese Firms

As China joins the World Trade Organization, the authors question whether China’s large firms will be able to compete on the global level playing field. Over the past two decades, Chinese large enterprises have undertaken extensive evolutionary change but, at the same time, the world’s leading firms have undergone a revolutionary transformation. Based on analysis of firms with the aerospace, oil and petrochemical industry, the authors conclude that China’s leading firms face critical challenges, even in sectors in which China’s policy-makers have scored significant successes.     

From plan to market in the health sector?: China’s experience

Countries worldwide confront the challenge of defining and achieving appropriate roles for government and market forces in the health sector. China—as both a developing and a transitional economy—represents an important case. This paper uses an international comparative perspective to examine how the health of China’s population and other aspects of health system performance changed during the reform era. We draw on standard public finance and health economics theory, as well as the more recent incomplete-contracting theory of property rights, to summarize the comparative advantages of government and market for financing and delivery of health services, particularly in developing and transitional economies. We then describe and analyze against this theoretical background the transformation of China’s health sector and recent commitment of government funds to move toward universal coverage.     

Producing and Procuring Horticultural Crops with Chinese Characteristics: The Case of Northern China

The main goal of our paper is to understand what types of farmers have been able to participate in the horticultural revolution, how they interact with markets and how supply chains affect their production decisions and incomes. We also want to understand if the rise of supermarkets has changed supply chains. Our analysis uses spatially sampled data from 200 communities and 500 households in the Greater Beijing area. In contrast to fears of some researchers, we find small and poor farmers actively participate in the emergence of China’s horticulture economy. Moreover, there has been almost no penetration of modern wholesalers or retailers into rural communities.     

Production versus reproduction: A threat to China's development strategy

The goals of the post-Mao leadership to turn China into a powerful and modern socialist society are jeopardized by the sum total of China's population and projected population growth rates. National development plans are thus based on policies to rapidly promote production and drastically reduce population growth, which at the local level make quite contradictory demands on peasant households. The question underlying China's future development is: can current production plans based on the responsibility system and expanding domestic sidelines which demand that peasant households have access to considerable labour resources be reconciled with State reproduction plants which demand that peasant households have only one child?     

Increasing Wages,Factor Substitution,and Cropping Pattern Changes in China

This article analyzed the influence of increasing wages on cropping patterns from theoretical and empirical perspectives. The results showed that the increasing labor cost provided a significant incentive to adjust the grain cropping pattern, which increased the production of the three major cereal grains but reduced the production of other grain crops. Increasing wages had a significant negative impact on cash crops. More labor-intensive cash crops experienced a larger negative impact in the context of increasing wages. The increase in labor costs also had a negative impact on the proportion of vegetables produced, which was more evident in northern China. A further mechanism test indicated that factor substitution was a significant reason for cropping pattern changes; this illustrated the substitution of labor by machinery not only between grain crops and cash crops but also among different cash crops.     

Producers, Processors, and Procurement Decisions: The Case of Vegetable Supply Chains in China

This study examines how different supply chain characteristics impose different coordination costs on vegetable processors. The results provide a basis for understanding the relative importance of four alternative supply chain characteristics to vegetable processors: (1) the size of the producers’ production base; (2) the distance between the producer and the processing plant; (3) the level of detail specified in the contract between processors and grower; and (4) whether the producer has food safety certification. Vegetable processors from Laiyang County, Shandong province, China’s largest horticultural production and export region, provide the data underlying the following analysis. Conjoint analysis suggests that the vegetable processors consider the size of the production units as the most important supply chain characteristic influencing their choice of producers, followed by distance to producer, type of contract and food safety certification.     

FDI facilitated by agglomeration economies: evidence from manufacturing and services joint ventures in China

The open door policy of China’s economic reform since the 1980s has attracted heavy foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into China and especially to Guangdong (particularly the Pearl River Delta region, PRD) and induced significant economic growth during the past two decades. While there exist various classical theories of FDI in attempting to identify the determinants of FDI inflow and to explain the behavior of FDI flows, limited attention has been given from the perspective of agglomeration effects generated by a core-periphery (CP) relation.This paper intends to study the impacts of agglomerations on FDI inflows in the context of Krugman’s CP relation (1991) by investigating (1) the formation of a CP relation via gravity model analysis; (2) whether different types of industry FDI flows will respond differently in the CP-system, given agglomeration effects; and (3) whether FDI origin and firm scale matter in affecting FDI flows.A database consisting of a population frame of 37,742 firm-level manufacturing and services joint ventures investing in Guangdong in 1998 was used. Empirical results show that the agglomerations of the CP relation have affected FDI flow patterns. While both manufacturing and services FDI and sources of investment responded differently to the impacts, smaller firms were found more responsive to the CP-agglomeration settings regardless of FDI by industry type and by source. The significance and implications of the CP-system to further facilitate FDI in the region are discussed.     

小农的种粮逻辑——40年来中国农业种植结构的转变与未来策略

基于已有文献对中国粮食安全问题的质疑与担忧,作者回顾了改革开放40年以来我国农业种植结构调整从"去粮化"到"趋粮化"的历史性转变。文章认为,2003年以来中国粮食长期且连续的增长,并非由外生的经济因素直接激发,亦非农业税减免和农业补贴政策的直接诱导,而是由农户在要素流动与卷入农业分工的过程中所内生的自我执行机制来决定的。理论与实证研究表明,中国小农的种粮逻辑是通过要素配置、地权预期、分工深化三个方面来共同表达的。小规模分散化的农业家庭经营格局并不构成中国粮食安全的阻碍,相反,却内含着重要的组织优势与可动员潜力。文章进一步讨论了保障中国粮食安全的基本策略与政策选择。     

Estimating the Impact of Transgenic Bt Cotton on West and Central Africa: A General Equilibrium Approach

West and Central Africa (WCA)’s cotton sector is experiencing rising production costs and lower yields, reversing decades of growth. Declining input use, soil fertility and inefficient chemical pest controls are contributing factors. We evaluate the potential impact of Bt cotton on WCA using a multiregion general equilibrium model and multicountry estimates of Bt-induced productivity. We find that Bt cotton raises growers’ returns, land value and welfare. Released labor from cotton is shifted to food crops hence reducing labor shortage constraints. Overall, results indicate that potential gross benefits from Bt cotton are substantial for WCA cotton sector, and that the economic costs of nonadoption are equally significant.     

The “hidden” side of the “flying-geese” catch-up model: Japan’s dirigiste institutional setup and a deepening financial morass

Akamatsu’s original “flying geese” (FG) growth model is often used as a frame of reference for both further conceptual elaborations and empirical explorations. So far, only the positive results of FG development have been focused on and emphasized in connection with Asia’s phenomenal growth in the precrisis period. The Japanese economy, supposedly Asia’s lead goose, is in the eleventh consecutive year of stagnation. How has such a once successful lead goose come to be stricken by financial woes? This paper points out that Japan’s once miraculous FG growth was made possible because it established an effective dirigiste catch-up regime in the early postwar period but that Japan’s present financial predicament is paradoxically a path-dependent outcome of this FG strategy. The institutional, especially financial, dimension of FG strategy needs to be taken into account to explain why such a strategy once proved effective but later culminated in a deepening financial morass. The FG model should encompass not only the industrial dimension of catch-up but also its institutional, particularly financial, dimension.     

The Roles of Corporatization and Stock Market Listing in Reforming China’s State Industry

This article provides an overview of China’s on-going efforts to reform its industrial state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through corporatization and stock market listing, and assesses the effects on the performance of these SOEs. It highlights changes, though limited, in both ownership pattern and corporate governance on the one hand, and rapid increase in concentration on the other as a result of these reform measures. It also explores the reasons why these changes have failed to significantly improve the performance of the SOEs, but have nevertheless paved the way for more complete privatization. The practical implications of these findings are also discussed.     

Towards a sustainable growth path

For Japan’s economy, there were two tasks I embraced myself for: “how to return to a sustainable growth path” and “how to rebuild the financial system.” And for the Bank of Japan, there was also the important challenge of navigating our way on a new voyage in line with the principles of the new Bank of Japan Law, which came into effect at almost the same time as I became Governor.     

China and the Exports of Other Asian Countries

We analyze the impact of China’s growth on the exports of other Asian countries, distinguishing China’s demand for imports from its penetration of export markets. We account for the endogeneity of Chinese exports by applying instrumental variables in a gravity model with country-pair fixed-effects. We find that China’s crowding-out effect is felt mainly in markets for consumer goods and hence by less-developed Asian countries, not in markets for capital goods or by the more advanced Asian economies. Meanwhile, China has been sucking in imports from its Asian neighbors, but this effect is mainly felt in markets for capital goods. Hence, more and less developed Asian countries are being affected very differently by China’s rise. JEL no. E5, F4     

Chinese Bilateral Intra-Industry Trade: A Panel Data Study for 50 Countries in the 1992–2001 Period

This study examines the features and determinants of Chinese intra-industry trade during the 1992–2001 transition period for 50 of China’s trade partners. We disentangle total intra-industry trade (TIIT) into vertical intra-industry trade (VIIT) vis-à-vis horizontal intra-industry trade (HIIT), using data at the four-digit SITC level. The findings indicate that Chinese bilateral intra-industry trade, particularly VIIT, increased significantly during this transition period. VIIT appears to be positively related to differences in consumer patterns. HIIT is negatively related to these differences. In addition, we find that FDI has played an important role in determining IIT, especially VIIT. Other significant intra-industry trade drivers are geographical distance, economic size, trade openness and trade composition. Finally, the impact of China’s liberalization policies and the special role of Hong Kong are demonstrated. We discuss a number of important business and political implications that can be drawn from our findings. JEL no. F14     

Reducing China's regional disparities: Is there a growth cost?

While China's growth has been spectacular over the past 30 years, it has masked growing underlying disparities in the regional distribution of income with coastal provinces growing at a much faster rate than the rest of the country, exacerbating already marked differences in per capita income. Policy focused on addressing these growing disparities has had to face the possibility that spreading growth more evenly around the country will require a sacrifice of the national growth rate. Yet there is almost no empirical evidence that this is so and, if it is, how big the required sacrifice is. This paper contributes to filling this gap by analyzing the relationship between aggregate growth and the inequality of regional output distribution. We use a VAR model to simulate the effects over time on growth of a reduction in inequality and also the effects on inequality of an increase in growth. We find, first, that in the long run a more equal distribution can be obtained without a growth sacrifice. Second, in the short run a reduction in inequality reduces growth. Third, in the short and long runs an increase in growth actually reduces inequality.     

Water Scarcity and Food Import: A Case Study for Southern Mediterranean Countries

Taking six southern Mediterranean countries as a case study, this paper addresses the water-food challenges facing water-scarce countries and the implications for the world food economy. By accounting the volume of virtual water embedded in food imports into the countries concerned, a close relationship between water endowment and food import dependence is elaborated. A projection of the cereal demand suggests an increment of 40–60 percentage points in these countries by 2020 above their 1998–99 levels, raising the aggregate volume of cereal imports to around 40 million tons. The analysis also finds that the trend of shifting from staple grain crops to higher-value cash crops was weak during the past two decades. A deteriorating trade deficit for both cereal and noncereal agricultural products was evident in almost all the countries, suggesting a rigid and persistent constraint of water scarcity on overall agricultural development. The results of this case study highlight two important points: (a) food imports are imperative for compensating water resource deficiency; (b) water scarcity-related food imports will continue to expand and impose increasing impacts on the global food economy.     

Chinese industrial productivity in an international context

The paper aims to find out and evaluate in an international context the level and growth rate of labour productivity in China's industry. In the course of this investigation it transpired that the data used often in the West, i.e. those of Field et al., lead to results that are rather implausible. However some new official Chinese data imply much more satisfying results. The other aim of the paper is to comment on recent radical changes in Chinese economic policy, in the light of her productivity performance.     

老龄化中国人口红利实现的可能性与途径探讨

本文首先简要回顾了有关老龄化社会的人口红利效应的相关研究。近而,利用抽样人口数据,本文预测了未来75年我国人口规模与结构的变化趋势,指出在未来的大部分年份里,从第一人口红利的角度看,人口结构很可能将对中国经济增长起负面作用;而解决未来养老问题并实现第二人口红利的关键是：从当前开始即在充分就业的前提下实现持续的、有效的资本积累。一个重要的、可行的资本积累方式就是建立积累制的养老金计划。     

The productivity of public capital: Evidence from Japan’s 1994 electoral reform

This paper estimates the causal effect of public capital stock on Production, using Japanese prefectural data. We first articulate the difficulty of consistently estimating the regional-level production function with public capital that results from the endogeneity of the public capital stock amount. The public capital amount could be endogenous because of the central government’s political decision-making process of public capital allocation or the local government’s budgetary constraints.Japan’s electoral reform in 1994 offers an exogenous variation in the public capital investment across regions, and we exploit this event to estimate the causal effect of public capital on production. The reform drastically changed the distribution of political representation in the Lower House across regions, and it accordingly changed the allocation of public capital across regions as well. We cannot reject the null hypothesis that public capital is not productive based on the estimates from this natural experimental identification strategy.