nep-cna New Economics Papers
on China
Issue of 2017‒06‒18
six papers chosen by
Zheng Fang
Ohio State University

  1. The Heterogeneous Impact of Pension Income on Elderly Living Arrangements: Evidence from China’s New Rural Pension Scheme By Cheng, Lingguo; Liu, Hong; Zhang, Ye; Zhao, Zhong
  2. How Did China’s WTO Entry Benefit U.S. Consumers? By Mary Amiti; Mi Dai; Robert C. Feenstra; John Romalis
  3. Trading with China; Productivity Gains, Job Losses By JaeBin Ahn; Romain A Duval
  4. Regional Growth Differences in China for 1995-2013: An Empirical Integrative Analysis of their Sources By Wang, Hongbo; Rickman, Dan S.
  5. Housing Price and Population Growth across China: The Role of Housing Supply By Wang, Hongbo; Rickman, Dan S.
  6. Under cover: detecting the existence of profit-shifting in China By Qian, Xuefeng; Tian, Bifei; Reed, W. Robert; Chen, Ziruo

  1. By: Cheng, Lingguo; Liu, Hong; Zhang, Ye; Zhao, Zhong
    Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of pension income on living arrangements of the elderly. Taking advantage of a unique opportunity due to the recent establishment and expansion of the New Rural Pension Scheme in China, we explicitly address the endogeneity of pension status and pension income through a fixed-effect model with instrumental variable approach by exploiting exogenous time variation in the program implementation at county level. We find an overall positive effect of pension income on independent living as well as considerable heterogeneity. The positive income effects of the NRPS are concentrated among the elderly with adult children living nearby, of higher socio-economic status, and with better health at baseline; for other groups, the effects are insignificant. We also find that more generous programs exhibit larger effects. Our results highlight that living arrangement is multidimensional in rural China.
    Keywords: pension income,living arrangements,heterogeneity,China
    JEL: J12 H55 I38
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:80&r=cna
  2. By: Mary Amiti; Mi Dai; Robert C. Feenstra; John Romalis
    Abstract: China’s rapid rise in the global economy following its 2001 WTO entry has raised questions about its economic impact on the rest of the world. In this paper, we focus on the U.S. market and potential consumer benefits. We find that the China trade shock reduced the U.S. manufacturing price index by 7.6 percent between 2000 and 2006. In principle, this consumer welfare gain could be driven by two distinct policy changes that occurred with WTO entry. The first, which has received much attention in the literature, is the U.S. granting permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to China. A second, new channel we identify is China reducing its own input tariffs. Our results show that China’s lower input tariffs increased its imported inputs, boosting Chinese firms’ productivity and their export values and varieties. Lower input tariffs also reduced Chinese export prices to the U.S. market. In contrast, PNTR had no effect on Chinese productivity nor export prices, but did increase Chinese entry into the U.S. export market. We find that at least two-thirds of the China WTO effect on the U.S. price index of manufactured goods was through China lowering its own tariffs on intermediate inputs.
    JEL: F12 F14
    Date: 2017–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23487&r=cna
  3. By: JaeBin Ahn; Romain A Duval
    Abstract: We analyze the impact on productivity in advanced economies of fast-growing trade with China between the mid-1990s and late-2000s, separately identifying the export and import channels. We use country-sector-level data for 18 advanced economies and, similar to Autor, Dorn, and Hanson (2013), exploit exogenous variation in trade with China in a given country-sector by instrumenting imports from (exports to) China in a given country-sector with the average imports from (exports to) China in the same sector in other advanced economies. Our estimates point to large productivity gains from trading with China—the (exogenous) rise of China in global trade may have increased the level of total factor productivity by about 1.9 percent, or 12.3 percent of the overall increase over the sample period, in the median country-sector. By contrast, using a similar empirical strategy, we find adverse employment effects of Chinese imports in exposed country-industries, consistent with previous studies. Taken together, these findings point to large gains from free trade, while underscoring the scope for a more active policy role in redistributing them, particularly by easing workers’ transition between jobs and industries.
    Date: 2017–05–23
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:17/122&r=cna
  4. By: Wang, Hongbo; Rickman, Dan S.
    Abstract: An integrative analysis of several regional economic outcome variables in China for the period of 1995-2013 reveal the major sources of regional growth differences in China. Patterns of growth in population, per capita income, gross regional product, housing prices and changes in unemployment rates are identified using principal components analysis. Regression analysis of principal component scores is applied to identify geographic patterns in the sources of the growth. The analysis suggests that shifts in labor supply largely were responsible for the regional growth differences over the period, though shifts in labor demand were nearly equally as important. The results have implications for evaluating the success of regional development policies such as the Western Development Strategy.
    Keywords: Regional growth; China; Western Development Strategy
    JEL: R11 R12 R31
    Date: 2017–03–11
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79642&r=cna
  5. By: Wang, Hongbo; Rickman, Dan S.
    Abstract: In this paper, we employ a spatial equilibrium growth model to examine the role of housing supply for differences in housing price and population growth across the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities of mainland China for 1999-2013. A distinguishing feature of the model used from other spatial equilibrium models is a time-varying and regionally-varying elasticity of housing supply. Regions in the East are found to have had the most inelastic housing supply, while northern regions had the most elastic housing supply. The differences in exogenous housing supply growth are shown to have significantly affected relative regional population growth over the period, suggesting that housing policies can be used to promote growth.
    Keywords: Housing supply; China; Spatial equilibrium
    JEL: R11 R12 R31
    Date: 2017–03–17
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:79641&r=cna
  6. By: Qian, Xuefeng; Tian, Bifei; Reed, W. Robert; Chen, Ziruo
    Abstract: This paper investigates profit-shifting behaviour among a large sample of multinational corporations (MNCs) in China. While profit-shifting behaviour is difficult to observe directly, it can be inferred from the behaviour of firms. That is the approach taken by Egger, Merlo, and Wamser (Unobserved tax avoidance and the tax elasticity of FDI 2014, henceforth EM&W) in their seminal analysis of tax elasticity of German MNCs. They developed a two-component mixture model that categorized MNCs into tax "avoiders" and "non-avoiders" based upon the estimated elasticities of investment to taxes. The authors of this paper apply their approach to their sample of MNCs in China. Like EM&W they find evidence of two distinct groups of MNCs. One group is responsive to changes in taxes, reducing investment when taxes increase. The other group is unresponsive to taxes, so that investment is not significantly associated with changes in tax rates. The authors show that the characteristics of these groups closely match the "avoiders" and "non-avoiders" of EM&W's sample. Even so, their estimated tax elasticities are much smaller than EM&W. This suggests that the extent of profit-shifting was relatively small during China's period of preferential tax treatment for foreign investors.
    Keywords: MNCs,profit shifting,tax elasticity of investment,finite mixture model,China
    JEL: F23 H32
    Date: 2017
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201726&r=cna

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