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732. China as Consumer
- Author:
- Kenneth Lieberthal
- Publication Date:
- 12-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- This article seeks to examine two key issues that will be major drivers of consumption in China over the coming five years: urbanization and environmental amelioration. Whether the issues identified will be the largest factors over this time frame remains unclear, but each of these two areas warrants considerable attention as a very significant contributor to the future of consumer demand in China.
- Topic:
- Economics, Environment, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
733. China as Employer and Consumer: Economic Outlook for the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010)
- Author:
- Arthur R. Kroeber
- Publication Date:
- 12-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- China's impressive economic growth of the past quarter century (9.4 percent average annual real GDP growth between 1980 and 2004, by official figures) is not miraculous; on the contrary, it can largely be explained by conventional models of economic development.
- Topic:
- Economics, Human Welfare, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
734. Hu Jintao's Outbox
- Author:
- Joseph Fewsmith
- Publication Date:
- 12-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- China has now sustained two and a half decades of high-speed growth. This growth has been even faster with regard to exports and China's role in international trade. Domestically, a capitalist tendency seems to be everywhere, while internationally the rise of China, whether peaceful or not, seems – at least to some – to threaten Western jobs, prosperity, and the international order. The focus of this paper, however, is not this question of whether or how China poses a threat to the West but rather an old (but new) question of how this “capitalist” conversion is compatible with the continued rule of a communist party. This is a question of considerable practical import, as people contemplate what the continued growth of the Chinese economy might mean for the political stability of that country, but it is also a question of considerable theoretical import: Leninist parties that sought to “include” external interests, it was argued, are on the way to collapse. It is only a matter of time. The time frame for China has lasted longer than theoreticians had supposed, though they might yet prove to be right – perhaps the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has lasted longer than people imagined but it might still be on the road to collapse. This point of view would find supporters, both in the West and in China, but even if they prove right, it is important to inquire more deeply about what is going on in China, whether institutions are being created, and if so whether they might provide a foundation for a post-communist China or whether they suggest a more chaotic future.
- Topic:
- Economics and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
735. BRICSAM and the Non-WTO
- Author:
- Agata Antkiewicz and John Whalley
- Publication Date:
- 10-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
- Abstract:
- We discuss recent regional trade and economic partnership agreements involving the large population, rapidly growing economies (BRICSAM: Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa, ASEAN, and Mexico). Perhaps 50 out of 300 agreements that exist worldwide involve BRICSAM countries; most are recently concluded and will be implemented over the next few years. Along with extensive bilateral investment treaties, mutual recognition agreements, and other country to country (or region) arrangements they are part of what we term the non-WTO. This paper aims to document and characterize the agreements and analyze their possible impacts. Agreements differ in specificity, coverage and content. In some treaties there are detailed and specific commitments, but these also co-exist with seemingly vague commitments and (at times) opaque dispute settlement and enforcement mechanisms. Whether these represent a partial replacement of the World Trade Organization (WTO) process for newly negotiated reciprocity based on global trade liberalization or largely represent diplomatic protocol alongside significant WTO disciplines is the subject of this paper.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Russia, China, India, Asia, South Africa, Brazil, and Mexico
736. Class Formation or Fragmentation? Allegiances and Divisions Among Managers and Workers in State-Owned Enterprises
- Author:
- Kun-Chin Lin
- Publication Date:
- 03-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Kellogg Institute for International Studies
- Abstract:
- This essay argues that crosscutting allegiances between managers and workers, and between existing workers and ex-workers, have formed strong social and psychological bases for sustained collective action and inaction during a period of organizational transformation in contemporary China. This thesis challenges the conventional wisdom that implies either class formation during marketization or the failure of such as an explanation for the alleged limits of the working class in mobilizing to defend its social contract against the central state. Through in-depth case studies of Chinese oilfields and refineries, I identify patterns of fragmentation deriving from intergenerational differences among the workers, managerial incentive structures, and the continuing reworking of patron-client relations between subgroups of workers and managers. I conclude that managers' and workers' passive and active responses to the state's rapid dismantling of the socialist notion of “class” in a self-sufficient work unit have placed a tangible social limit on authoritarian institutional innovation.
- Topic:
- Economics, Emerging Markets, and Government
- Political Geography:
- China
737. Adjusting Chinese Bilateral Trade Data: How Big is China's Trade Surplus
- Author:
- John W. Schindler and Dustin H. Beckett
- Publication Date:
- 04-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Abstract:
- Hong Kong plays a prominent role as a re-exporter of a large percentage of trade bound for or coming from China. Current reporting practices in China and its trading partners do not fully reflect this role and therefore provide a misleading picture of the origin or ultimate destination of Chinese exports and imports. We adjust bilateral trade data for both China and its trading partners to correct for this problem. We also correct for differences due to markups in Hong Kong and different standards for reporting trade (c.i.f. versus f.o.b.). For 2003, we estimate that China's overall trade surplus was between $53 billion and $126 billion, larger than that reported in official Chinese data, but smaller than that reported by China's trading partners. We also provide evidence that, in general, the actual origin of a good that is transshipped through Hong Kong is correctly reported by the importing country, but the final destination of such goods is not correctly reported by the exporting country.
- Topic:
- Economics and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, and Hong Kong
738. Exchange Rate Pass-through to U.S. Import Prices: Some New Evidence
- Author:
- Jaime Marquez, Mario Marazzi, Nathan Sheets, Joseph Gagnon, Robert J. Vigfusson, Jon Faust, Robert F. Martin, Trevor Reeve, and John Rogers
- Publication Date:
- 04-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
- Abstract:
- This paper documents a sustained decline in exchange rate pass-through to U.S. import prices, from above 0.5 during the 1980s to somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.2 during the last decade. This decline in the pass-through coefficient is robust to the measure of foreign prices that is included in the regression (i.e., CPI versus PPI), whether the estimation is done in levels or differences, and whether U.S. prices are included as an explanatory variable. Notably, the largest estimates of pass-through are obtained when commodity prices are excluded from the regression. In this case, the pass-through coefficient captures both the direct effect of the exchange rate on import prices and an indirect effect operating through changes in commodity prices. Our work indicates that an increasing share of exchange rate pass-through has occurred through this commodity-price channel in recent years. While the source of the decline in passthrough is difficult to pin down with certainty, our work points to several factors, including the reduced share of (commodity-intensive) industrial supplies in U.S. imports and the increased presence of Chinese exporters in U.S. markets. We detect a particular step down in the passthrough coefficient around the time of the Asian financial crisis and document a shift in the export pricing behavior of emerging Asian firms around that time.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- United States and China
739. Agricultural Policy Reform in China
- Publication Date:
- 11-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Abstract:
- China is the world's sixth largest economy and its most populous country, home to 1.3 billion people or 21% of the Earth's total population. But it faces a major challenge in providing its people with food – China has only 10% of the world's arable land and only one quarter of the average world water resources per person.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Civil Society, and Economics
- Political Geography:
- China and Asia
740. Agricultural Policy Reform in Brazil
- Publication Date:
- 10-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Abstract:
- Brazil is a major player in the global economy, one of the world's 10 largest economies, with a population of 180 million and vast natural resources. Brazil's agricultural land is exceeded only by China, Australia and the United States, and agriculture plays an important role in the country's economy. Primary agriculture accounts for 8% of GDP, while agricultural products account for about 30% of exports.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Agriculture, and Economics
- Political Geography:
- United States, China, Brazil, South America, and Australia