Dec 2006, Volume 1 Issue 4
    

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  • A research on China’s long-term rice prices (1644–2000)
    LU Feng, PENG Kaixiang
    2006, 1(4): 465-520. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11459-006-0017-2
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    Drawing on the research achievements on rice prices made in the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China, and New China, this paper arranges, estimates and observes the statistical data on rice prices in the country over the past three-and-a-half centuries. This paper includes the following four aspects: first of all, it assembles and reorganizes the original data of rice market prices marked in various forms of money in different historical periods since the Qing Dynasty; then it converts the original data of rice prices into the nominal rice price index by making use of the numerical exchange relations between different currencies developed in the past revolution and evolution of monetary systems; and then it converts the nominal rice price into real rice price data in conjunction with the arrangement and estimation results of the general price index; and finally, makes a brief observation of and comment on some features of long-term changes of real rice prices.
  • Foreign trade, environmental protection and sustainable economic growth in China
    CHEN Jiyong, LIU Wei, HU Yi
    2006, 1(4): 521-536. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11459-006-0018-1
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    Since the 1990s, China has exhibited growth in both foreign trade and the economy. Promoting environmental protection and sustainable economic growth are main concerns in the academic profession in the country. This paper makes an empirical analysis of trade and environmental pollution, and discusses the inherent relationship between foreign trade, environmental protection and sustainable economic growth. In addition, this paper makes several policy suggestions with a view to adjusting trade structure, enforcing environmental protection and promoting sustainable economic growth in China.
  • Unit roots and structural breakpoints in China’s macroeconomic and financial time series
    LIANG Qi, TENG Jianzhou
    2006, 1(4): 537-559. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11459-006-0019-0
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    This paper applies unit-root tests to 10 Chinese macroeconomic and financial time series that allow for the possibility of up to two endogenous structural breaks. We found that 6 of the series, i.e., GDP, GDP per capita, employment, bank credit, deposit liabilities and investment, can be more accurately characterized as a segmented trend stationarity process around one or two structural breakpoints as opposed to a stochastic unit root process. Our findings have important implications for policy-makers to formulate long-term growth strategy and short-run stabilization policies, as well as causality analysis among the series.
  • China’s manufacturing performance from a multilateral perspective: 1980-2004
    REN Ruo′en, ZHENG Haitao
    2006, 1(4): 560-575. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11459-006-0020-7
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    This paper examines international competitiveness of China s manufacturing industry during the period of 1980-2004 from a multilateral perspective in terms of purchasing power parities, relative price levels, labor productivity and unit labor costs. The various measures of PPPs in China s manufacturing industry are found to be approximately 3.7 RMB per international dollar in the base year 1997. Since the mid-1980s, the relative price of China s manufacturing products has been declined and is the lowest compared with the US, UK, Germany, Japan and South Korea. The unit labor cost is found to show a declining trend with some fluctuation. The labor productivity of China s manufacturing industry is relatively low and is found to converge with other countries since 1992.
  • On transaction efficiency and China’s Urban-Rural disparity
    ZHAO Hongjun, YIN Bocheng
    2006, 1(4): 597-614. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11459-006-0022-5
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    It is recommended for economists to examine China s Urban-Rural disparity from the perspective of transaction efficiency, in that it can provide us with a systematic explanation to both the cases of different countries and development stages. China s Urban-Rural disparity is special and virtually a demonstration of its special transaction efficiency structure. Exploration of China s Urban-Rural disparity from such perspective indicates that, different from those in countries with a market economy, China s case involves many exogenous and contrived factors. Therefore, the solutions are to improve the whole transaction efficiency in the economy, which includes eliminating its regionally unfavorable policies and institutions, and enforcing more favorable and regionally balanced institutional reforms.