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Begin New Search Political Geography Asia Content Type Working Paper Publication Year within 10 Years

371. The U.S.–China Trade Imbalance and the Theory of Free Trade: Debunking the Currency Manipulation Argument

Author:
Anwar Shaikh and Isabella Weber
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
The U.S.–China trade imbalance is commonly attributed to a Chinese policy of currency manipulation. However, empirical studies failed to reach consensus on the RMB misalignment. We argue that this is not a consequence of poor measurement but of theory. At the most abstract level the conventional principle of comparative cost advantage suggests real exchange rates will adjust so as to balance trade. Therefore, the persistence of trade imbalances tends to be interpreted as arising from currency manipulation facilitated by foreign exchange interventions. By way of contrast, the absolute cost theory explains trade imbalances as the outcome of free trade among nations that have unequal real costs. We argue that a disparity in real costs is the root cause of the U.S.–China trade imbalance.
Topic:
Exchange Rate Policy, Free Trade, Trade, and Purchasing Power
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

372. Predictors of school dropout across Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam

Author:
Santiago Cueto, Claudia Felipe, and Juan Leon
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Group for the Analysis of Development (GRADE)
Abstract:
In this paper the authors utilize the five rounds of Young Lives household surveys across four countries (Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam) to study the characteristics of children who had dropped out of school by 22 years of age. While most children in the longitudinal sample go to primary school, they tend to drop out more often and earlier in Ethiopia. In India most children complete the early grades of school but drop out later, particularly in grades 11 and 13. Researchers find that in all countries, except Vietnam, there is a considerable number of children who drop out of school but at some point return to it, either to complete secondary or drop out again. The reasons provided by children for dropping out across the countries are oftentimes related to poverty: for example, the need to work, or care or provide for family. The multivariate analysis shows that indeed in many cases the wealth level of the family at an early age predicts later dropout, as does maternal education level, students’ early skills and residence in certain regions of each country. There are also some variations across countries; for example, boys are more likely to drop out of school in Ethiopia and Vietnam, and children who have repeated a grade are more likely to drop out of school in Peru. However, having high educational aspirations at early ages seems to be a protective factor against dropping out. This suggests that the value that children place on education may be an important preventative factor against dropping out. Overall, these results suggest the need to act early through education and social protection interventions to target young children who are at risk of dropping out, and the follow their trajectories, providing support as needed to specific groups and even individuals, so that all children may fulfill their right to complete at least secondary education.
Topic:
Education and Children
Political Geography:
Africa, India, Asia, Vietnam, Ethiopia, and Peru

373. Oil Prices and Stock Prices in Clean Energy: New Evidence from Chinese Subsectoral Data

Author:
Dong Weijia
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The International Energy Agency (IEA) believes that the world needs a clean energy revolution to break its dependence on fossil fuels. Clean energy consists of not just the new energy but also the vehicles that use them,2 including renewable energy, nuclear power, and biofuels. In this context, many studies discuss whether clean energy could have a significant substitution effect on traditional fossil fuels, especially oil.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Oil, and Trade
Political Geography:
China and Asia

374. The cross-border impacts of China’s official rate shocks on stock returns of Chinese concepts shares listed on U.S. market

Author:
Dong Weijia
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
This paper examines a new cross-border effect of an emerging country’s interest rate changes on the stock returns of its domestic firms listed overseas. First, we discover that the increase in China’s official interest rate greatly affects the NYSE-listed Chinese stocks, thereby suggesting that similar to Chinese domestic investors, the institutional investors in a mature market sometimes exhibit irrational sentiment driven by an emerging economy’s unexpected monetary policy shocks. Second, we highlight some novel asymmetric impacts of China’s official rate changes on Chinese concepts stock prices and reveal that these effects differ from the conventional nonlinear effects of monetary policies. For instance, a bull and bear regime has no statistically significant asymmetric effect on NYSE, whereas interest rate rise has different cross-border impact on Nasdaq and NYSE markets. These interesting findings are mainly driven by the smart investors in the U.S. stock market who are knowledgeable about the differences between NYSE- and Nasdaq-listed stocks and carefully analyze the different impacts of China’s official interest rate changes on the fundamentals of different types of Chinese concepts stocks.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Bilateral Relations, and Investment
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

375. Comovement of Home Prices: A Conditional Copula Approach

Author:
Lei Hou, Wei Long, and Qi Li
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Even though housing markets in different areas are relatively localized, regional home prices have become closely correlated and tend to be simultaneously affected by many national economic factors. In this paper, through the dynamic copula model, we confirm that regional home price dependence is time-varying and the conventional time-invariant copulas underestimate the degree of dependence during economic expansions and recessions. In essence, the U.S. residential real estate market has become more integrated since the mid-1980s. Using the conditional copula model, we further identify how the dependence among regional housing markets evolves along with some fundamental economic factors such as unemployment rate and interest rate. These findings can help investors and home buyers to better identify and evaluate the systematic risk in the nationwide housing market.
Topic:
Economics, Unemployment, and Housing
Political Geography:
China, Asia, North America, and United States of America

376. Evaluating the impact of fossil fuel vehicles exit on the oil demand in China

Author:
Ziru Feng, Tian Cai, Kangli Xiang, Chenxi Xiang, and Lei Hou
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Vehicle ownership is one of the most important factors affecting fuel demand. Based on the forecast of China's vehicle ownership, this paper estimates China’s fuel demand in 2035 and explores the impact of new energy vehicles under the scenarios of slow, medium, and rapid substitution. The main contribution of this paper is making a more detailed estimation on the main parameters such as the saturation level and growth rate of the vehicle ownership by taking into account the heterogeneity of provinces when using the Gompertz model to forecast the future vehicle ownership. On that basis, the fuel demand of each province in 2035 is calculated. The results show that: ①The vehicle ownership rate of each province conforms to the S-shape trend with the growth of real GDP per capita. At present, most provinces are at a stage of accelerating growth. However, the time for the vehicle ownership rate of each province to reach the inflection point is quite different. ②Without considering the replacement of new energy vehicles, China's auto fuel demand is expected to be 746.69 million tonnes (Mt) in 2035. Guangdong, Henan, and Shandong are the top three provinces in fuel demand due to the economic and demographic factors, with the expected fuel demand of 76.76, 64.91 and 63.95Mt respectively. ③Considering the replacement of new energy vehicles, China’s fuel demand in 2035 will be 653, 615 and 578 Mt respectively under the scenarios of slow, medium and fast substitution. Even under the scenario of slow substitution, the reduction in fuel demand will be 94 Mt, accounting for 26.3% of China's net oil imports in 2016. Therefore, the withdrawal of fuel vehicles will greatly reduce the oil demand and the dependence on foreign oil of China. Faced with the dual pressure of environmental crisis and energy crisis, the forecast results of this study provide practical reference for policy makers to rationally design the future fuel vehicle exit plan and solve related environmental issues.
Topic:
Climate Change, Oil, and Fossil Fuels
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and United States of America

377. WTO accession, trade expansion, and air pollution: Evidence from China’s county-level panel data

Author:
Shuai Chen, Faqin Lin, Xi Yao, and Peng Zhang
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
This study provides evidence that trade expansion has contributed to the degradation of air pollution in China. On the basis of different responses of counties’ trade to China’s World Trade Organization accession at the end of 2001, we exploit air pollution data from NASA to construct a difference-in-differences predicted trade as an instrument for our identification. We document statistically significant and robust evidence on trade expansion, which accounts for approximately 60% and 20% for the increase of PM2.5 and SO2, respectively, in China. Findings on trade pollution relation are robust to various tests. Deterioration in the environment is mainly driven by scale and trade in polluting sectors.
Topic:
Trade, Pollution, and WTO
Political Geography:
China and Asia

378. The Impact of COVID-19 on World Economy and China’s Role

Author:
Xu Xiujun
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
Recent years have seen more countries to experience “three lows and three highs” problems. The pandemic triggered the exposure of these accumulated risks, leading to a slump in world economic growth. Given the developing trend of world economy amid the ongoing pandemic, the world may face a range of challenges for a long time to go, e.g. insufficient momentum for economic growth, increased resistance for market opening and rising debt risks. As the world economy suffers a major hit, China has been active in providing the international community with the assistance needed to combat the COVID-19 and recover the economy, while China’s economy itself has shown strong resilience and stability. In the long run, the pandemic will not change the sound momentum of China’s economic development; rather, it will provide an opportunity for China to play a significant role in the world economy.
Topic:
Economy, Global Political Economy, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China and Asia

379. Fight the COVID-19 Pandemic and Improve Global Health Governance

Author:
Lin Ren, Aizong Xiong, Guoding Wu, Chen Shen, Xu Tian, and Bo Peng
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Abstract:
The fast spreading of the COVID-19 across the globe points to the urgency of strengthening global health governance. As the core global health governance institution, the WHO has taken a series of actions after the eruption of the epidemic and played an important role in providing guidance and coordinating global forces to combat the epidemic. The epidemic, however, has also exposed some defects of the global health governance mechanism, especially the WHO, and posed challenge to it. The international community needs to strengthen its support for the WHO to improve its role in the global health governance.
Topic:
Health, Governance, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
China, Asia, and Global Focus

380. Deceleration, Pandemic, Recession: Does India Have a Plan?

Author:
Roshan Kishore
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for the Advanced Study of India
Abstract:
India’s economic pain due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be more painful because it has come on the back of a prolonged economic slowdown. The pre-COVID-19 slowdown is rooted in India’s inability to find a sustainable demand side stimulus in the post-2008 period. However, the current regime has failed to grasp this macroeconomic reality and pursued policies which have only made matters worse. Because the economic pain has not translated into political pain for the ruling party, intellectual criticism of its policies is increasingly losing its influence. Persisting with such policy and politics will significantly add to the already existing economic pain and worsen social fissures. Unless the opposition reinvents its politics, things will not change on the policy front
Topic:
Public Health, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Economic Recovery
Political Geography:
India and Asia