Journal of International Trade is supervised by Ministry of Education of PRC, and sponsored by University of International Business and Economics. It aims to build up the top one academic journal with an international perspective in the field of economy and trade in China, and to provide services for China’s economic progress and enterprise development. The scope covers East Asia economic cooperation, regional trade, service trade, international investment and transnational operation, and international finance. The journal is included in CSSCI.
Editor-in-Chief Lin Guijun
Deputy Editor-in-Chief Tang Bi
Editorial Board Anthony Vennables(UK), David Round(Australia), Edmund Phelps(U.S.A.), E. Kwan Choi, Francisco Rivera-Batiz(U.S.A.), Gordon Anderson(Canada), Jagdish N. Bhagwati(U.S.A.), John Whal
From the perspective of decomposition of value sources of final consumption goods, this paper estimates and analyzes China's trade in value-added during 1995–2011 based on the world input-output database and multi-region input-output model from three dimensions (including total trade, country and industry), and employs structural decomposition analysis to investigate the driving factors of growth in trade in value-added. It is found that: (1) generally there is a rapid growth in China's import, export and surplus in trade in value-added; (2) China's main trade partners are the developed economies such as the United States, Europe and Japan, while the share of emerging economies is rapidly increasing; (3) China's import and export are both concentrated on knowledge-intensive manufactures, especially in electronic and optical devices, while the import of primary goods and resource products is on an apparent increase. Results of SDA suggest that China's growth of import in trade in value-added mainly stems from the expansion of its domestic demand, while the export growth mainly results from the demand growth in other economies, their adjustment of demand structure, and improvement in the international competitiveness of China's intermediate products.
Much research on how to escalate to a higher end of the global value chain (GVC) focuses on the impacts of improving local factors quality, cultivating advanced factors and developing advanced producer-service industry. This article argues that compared with traditional labor division divided by final products, in the GVC characterized by “added value” institution quality is much more important especially in determining comparative advantages, and the higher end of GVC is particularly more sensitive to institution quality. From the point of labor division evolution, this article presents a theoretical analysis on the micro mechanism of institution quality impact on GVC, on the basis of which an empirically statistical analysis using OLS, TSLS and systematic GMM methods is further conducted based on regional static and dynamic panel data of China between 1993 and 2010. The ensued econometrical test results are a strong support for the theoretical conclusion that institution quality significantly and positively affects China' s position on GVC. In addition, econometrical results also suggest that other factors including openness, human capital, organic composition of capital, infrastructure and FDI, all are positively correlated with China's evolution in GVC. Based on this, improvements in institution quality in accordance with requirements of open economy in the process of further opening-up help to accelerate China's evolution in GVC.
Based on the newly released statistical data of Ti VA from WTO-OECD, this article analyzed the imbalance between China's position in Global Value Chains and foreign trade from the perspective of value-added trade. Then a relative comparative advantage in manufacturing export, service export and financial intermediation import was constructed, examining the correlation between China's comparative advantage in international division and external imbalances while the social network method was introduced. The results show that the bilateral value-added trade balance between China and its trade partners are largely decided by their relative comparative advantages. There are notable positive correlations between the value-added trade balance and relative comparative advantages in manufacturing export and service export, while there are obvious negative correlations between the value-added trade balance and relative comparative advantages in financial intermediate import. In order to enhance the status of China in global value chains, China not only needs to adjust its industrial structure continuously, but also persists with the market-oriented reforms and institutional innovations, thus further improving its openness.
Based on provincial panel data of China from 2001 to 2010, this paper examines the influence of foreign direct investment on haze pollution in China. The results show that: (1) foreign direct investment affects China's environmental quality through three mechanisms, namely, scale effect, growth effect and structure effect; the scale effect and structure effect are negative while the growth effect is positive. Generally, foreign direct investment has a positive effect on haze pollution; (2) there is a significant negative correlation between regional GDP and haze pollution, while coal consumption, motor vehicle use, trade openness, housing construction areas and industry structure are significantly and positively relevant to haze pollution, and the impact of human capital on haze pollution is not significant;(3) further analysis also suggests that the effect of foreign direct investment on haze pollution varies regionally. As a conclusion, in the process of the economic and social development, not only should the needs of economic and social development be considered but also the bearing capacity of environment and resources.
Based on data of Chinese micro-enterprises from 2001 to 2007, and this article conducted a measurement on the export trade value added to analyze dynamically the effect and influencing mechanism of foreign capital entering into China on the value-added trade ratio. According to the research, the existence of foreign capital prominently promotes the rising of value-added trade ratio of Chinese enterprises, while the pace and regularity of the entry of foreign capital produce an obvious inhibiting effect. Foreign capital from developed countries is a major driving force behind the rising the value-added trade ratio in China, while capital from Hongkong, Macao or Taiwan fail to play any prominent role. The level of industry technology is prominently a moderating effect on the extent to which the foreign capital existence can promote the value-added trade ratio of enterprise. However, its effect varies according to different sources of foreign capital. China should continue to give full play to the overflow effect of the entry of foreign capital, implement selective policies to attract capital, create fair market circumstances, elevate productivity of enterprises, improve investment in human resources and R&D, which is a necessary approach to promoting value added in exports, and promoting China to transit from a big trading nation into a trading power.
On the basis of knowing the relationship between Chinese enterprise productivity and export, this paper combines the new world trade theory with the characteristics of the Chinese market and modifies assumption of the Melitz model on the domestic and foreign market entry costs to expand the model. In the empirical test, by using Chinese manufacturing enterprise panel data from 2000 to 2006, this paper finds that the “export self-selection effect” of Chinese manufacturing enterprises is negative on the whole, showing evidence of “productivity paradox.” In terms of different industrial divisions, the “export self-selection effect” is different in China's manufacturing enterprises, but there is a negative tendency in general. The paper holds that two main reasons may account for the result. One is that different trade types lead to the difference in trade patterns; the other is that the market entry threshold of the Chinese industry is relatively high, even if the factor of difference in trade types is excluded. To conclude, this paper analyzes the main reasons for the high threshold of the Chinese market in detail, in order to provide some opinions and suggestions for Chinese manufacturing enterprises to participate in the domestic competition and international trade.
This paper measures the terms of trade index of Chinese manufacturing sub-sectors by UNCOMTRADE HS96 six digit trade data, finding that the terms of trade of most of Chinese manufacturing sub-sectors deteriorated from 2001 to 2013, no matter the product variety is changed or not. The empirical analysis based on the dynamic panel system GMM method shows that export product diversification and human capital accumulation effectively improve the terms of trade of the manufacturing sector, but import product diversification worsen the terms of trade. In addition, there is a close relationship between the changes of terms of trade and the substitution elasticity of import and export products.
Whether participating in the global value chain is a preferred choice of firms to improve productivity is a topic of realistic concern and theoretical value. Based on Chinese Industrial Enterprise Database and Customs Database between 2000 and 2006, this paper uses PSM and a variety of productivity measures to investigate in detail into this question to provide micro empirical evidence for Chinese companies to step out of the "value depression" and extend to both ends of the smiling curve. The results show that participation in global value chain has a durable and progressive effect on firms' TFP, but it is likely that the driving force of this effect is a simple "improvement" of labor productivity through non-technological innovation factors such as in the production process and the mode of organization and management rather than a real improvement of capital productivity and a real deepening of capital through technological innovation factors; the productivity effect is different for different participating paths, among which firms who first export and then import intermediate inputs to further participate in global value chain gain more productivity than the other two paths; the productivity effect of participating in the global value chain exists both before or after the event, which may be explained by preparations before the participation.
The Belt and Road Initiative is an important part of the Chinese opening-up strategy in the new era. This paper constructs a trade facilitation index system to estimate the trade facilitation levels of 69 Asian and European countries along the Belt and Road. An extended gravity model is further employed to test the impact of trade facilitation on trade among countries along the route, which proves that the impact of trade facilitation is more significant than that of regional economic organizations, GDP, reduction of tariffs and some other factors. The study on trade potential suggests that the trade potential between Asian and European countries along the Belt and Road is enormous, while the enhancement in trade facilitation can further expand the trade potential, and the trade potential between regions is greater than that among the countries within a region. This paper argues that for the construction of the Belt and Road, importance should be attached to the cooperation and innovations in trade facilitation, and a diversified cooperation mechanism should be established, all in an effort to achieve the interconnection and common prosperity across Eurasia.
