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on China |
| By: | Kyoji Fukao; Kozo Kiyota; Ximing Yue |
| Abstract: | International trade has been a key engine driving Chinese economic growth in recent decades. Yet, long-term analyses of China's trade are still difficult because the country's trade statistics for the post-war period up to the mid-1980s have many shortcomings For example, official customs statistics published by the Chinese government during this period, if they were published at all, do not provide any breakdown by commodity classification. Against this background, we recently compiled new statistics of China's trade during 1952-1964 and 1981-2000 at the 3-digit level of the Standard International Trade Classification, Revision 1 (SITC-R1). The statistics for 1952-1964 and 1981-1987 are based on data we purchased from China's National Statistical Bureau. The data for 1988-2000 are compiled from the Commodity Trade Statistics of the United Nations (UN Comtrade) as a part of our joint work with scholars at the Institute of Development Economies, Japan External Trade Organization (IDE-JETRO). In this paper, we provide an overview of existing statistics of China's international trade and present our newly compiled statistics. |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hst:hstdps:d05-147&r=cna |
| By: | Ma, Hengyun; Huang, Jikun; Fuller, Frank H.; Rozelle, Scott |
| Abstract: | The overall goal of this study is to better understand food-away-from-home (FAFH) consumption in urban China. We use national statistical sources and our own data to examine the trends in FAFH during the late reform period and to analyze the determinants of FAFH demand, examining how different groups of consumers have participated in this new area of consumption. Besides the normal Tobit model for total food expenditure away from home, a system of multivariate Tobit equations was estimated simultaneously for three categories of foods consumed outside of the home. The results show that the rapid increase of FAFH demand, a rise that is fueled by higher incomes, is changing consumption patterns in China’s post-reform urban economy. We also use our findings to illustrate how omission of accounting for FAFH trends by China’s official statisticians has affected the reported trends in national meat supply and demand statistics. |
| JEL: | D1 Q1 R2 |
| Date: | 2006–02–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:isu:genres:12499&r=cna |
| By: | Robert W. Fogel |
| Abstract: | In 2002, the Chinese Communist Party announced a goal of quadrupling per capita income by the year 2020. Starting at income levels of the year 2000, this would require a growth rate of 7.2 percent per annum in per capita income or close to 8.0 percent in GDP. Such unresolved and emerging problems as growing income disparities, increasing pollution, pressures on infrastructure, the inefficiency of state owned enterprises, and political instability are often cited as reasons to doubt the attainability of the CCP’s goal. However, China’s progress in addressing fundamental constraints that might limit rapid economic growth augurs well for the success of its economic goals. Although there are disagreements about economic policy among top leaders, the continued transformation into a market economy and the promotion of increasing local autonomy in economic matters are not in doubt. In education, China has substantially increased the percentage of its workforce receiving a college education, and continuing growth in this investment in human capital could account for a large portion of the desired growth rate. In addition, the value of improvements in the quality of economic output unmeasured by GDP, such as advances in the quality of health care and education, could raise reported growth rates by as much as 60 percent. Finally, the government’s increasing sensitivity to public opinion and issues of inequality and corruption, combined with improving living conditions, have resulted in a level of popular confidence in the government that makes political instability unlikely. |
| JEL: | O0 |
| Date: | 2006–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12122&r=cna |