Search Results (5)

This study empirically examines the effects of digital services trade liberalization on digital services trade imports and its mediating mechanism through an augmented gravity model, utilizing data from 55 importing nations and 56 exporting countries from 2014 to 2020. Digital services trade liberalization substantially enhances digital services trade imports by reducing trade costs and aligning regulatory integration, and it exerts notable spillover effects on digital goods trade. Moreover, considering the variety of data service trade provisions, trade promotion provisions and privacy protection terms in digital RTAs exert much stronger positive effects on trade imports compared to data flow provisions. Regarding the heterogeneity of policy areas, liberalization initiatives, mainly removing performance and commercial presence criteria for digital services trade, exert the most substantial positive impact on imports of digital services. Furthermore, from the standpoint of industry heterogeneity, trade liberalization in digital services significantly enhances imports in insurance and pension services, intellectual property services, telecommunications, computer and information services, and personal, cultural, and recreational services. Finally, this article finds that a higher level of Internet development between the two parties correlates with a diminished trade promotion benefit of digital service trade liberalization. Full article

Carbon emission reduction was a crucial objective for China’s green transformation, yet establishing regional cooperation with neighboring areas posed a significant challenge in carbon governance. We investigated the spillover effects of carbon emissions trading (CET) on carbon emissions among Chinese cities, employing spatial difference-in-differences (DID), Callaway and Sant’Anna DID (CSDID), and other methodologies. Our paper integrated datasets on high-speed rails, dialects, and carbon emissions at the prefecture-level city scale. The findings revealed that (1) CET reduces emissions by 11.55% in pilot regions, although the impact of the second policy pilot was not significant. (2) In terms of spillover effects, CET increased emissions in neighboring cities with economic and geographic ties, creating a “beggar-thy-neighbor” reduction model. Conversely, it reduced emissions in cities with shared cultural ties, fostering a “good neighbor” reduction model. (3) The policy spillover effect exhibited an “inverted N” curve, first decreasing, then increasing, and finally decreasing as economic and geographic distance increased. (4) Technological advancement was identified as the primary mechanism driving the spillover effects of CET. To achieve the dual-carbon goal, avoiding harmful economic competition and promoting low-carbon cultural exchanges were essential. Full article

An ambitious per capita GDP target has been envisioned by the Chinese government since 2020 to project its sustainable economic growth rate by 2035. Can China fully achieve its goal? This is a question worth investigating. By inserting relevant TABLO modules of the final goods trade, the intermediate goods trade, and factor-strengthening technology spillovers, along with technology absorption thresholds effects of the global value chain, this study builds a global recursive dynamic computational general equilibrium (CGE) model on the basis of GTAP-RD. This approach enables us to consider total factor productivity (TFP) development through the “dual circulation” system, which was pointed out by the Chinese government as the only way for further growth. We simulate China’s technological progress under eight scenarios and use the latest GTAP Version 11 production and trade data (released in April 2023) for 141 countries and regions. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) If China maintains its trade opening policy, the 2035 vision goal can be achieved, with external circulation being more important than internal circulation. (2) The economic growth impacts of external and internal circulation function relatively independently. FDI offers a somewhat stronger synergistic effect on intermediate goods trade compared to final goods trade and consumption. (3) We find that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is the most important strategic partner for China. (4) FDI is not an effective way to lift the productive services sector’s TFP, and it is more realistic for China to open up the productive services market more widely. (5) China–US decoupling has an enormous global impact, and the United States is always the country that loses the most, with Europe being the group of countries that benefits when there is a large increase in TFP in the US. This study is entirely original in terms of its model structure, simulations, scenarios, and shocks. It aims to fill the gap of extending the application of the CGE model to specific issues, thereby making contributions and supplements to the three theories discussed in the article too. The limitation of this paper lies in the CGE linear description feature, which is concise and elegant and has the characteristics of extrapolation and long-term absorption of disturbances. However, it tends to overlook the randomness, non-convergence, and significant structural disturbances that may occur in future reality. Full article

This paper examines the impact of special tariffs between China and the United States (US) on their indirect trade partners via spillover effects. We applied a Value-Added Real Effective Exchange Rate (VA-REER) index to simulate how an increase in tariffs induces changes in demand for goods from Indonesia and selected Asian partners. We used the Input–Output Database (WIOD) to simulate the spillover effects across partners via the Global Value Chain (GVC) using data from 2000 to 2014. The results suggest that demand is doubly more responsive to prices (tariffs) when value-added (VA-REER) index is used instead of the conventional REER index (gross trade). We found that US tariffs on Chinese goods have a negative spillover impact on Indonesia’s exports. Meanwhile, the Chinese tariffs on American goods lead to small increased demand for Indonesian exports. We also found that US and China become equally crucial for Indonesia under the Value-Added REER scheme, concluding that the conventional REER approach may have underestimated the impact of US tariffs on Chinese goods. Finally, we found that Indonesia would be at risk to trade shocks if the US applies tariffs on China, Asian partners (Japan and South Korea), and the European Union (EU). Full article

China is in a strategic phase of an industrial green transformation. Industrial air pollution is a key environmental target for governance. Because import trade is a core channel through which advanced environmental protection technology is absorbed, the question of whether technology spillovers brought about by import trade can reduce industrial air pollution emissions is a topic worth exploring. This paper uses a generalized spatial two-stage least-square (GS2SLS) model to explore the impact of import trade technology spillovers on industrial air pollution emission intensities using panel data from 30 provinces and cities between 2000 and 2017. Economic scale, industrial structure, and technological innovation are used as intermediary variables to test whether they play mediating effects. The results show that: (1) capital and intermediate goods technology spillovers directly reduce industrial air pollution emission intensity and (2) import trade technology spillovers indirectly reduce emission intensities by expanding economic scale, optimizing industrial structure, and enhancing technological innovation through mediating variables. Furthermore, industrial structure optimization and technological innovation have the largest mediating effects on industrial SO₂, while economic expansion has the most significant mediating effect on industrial smoke and dust. The mediating effects of technology spillovers from intermediate goods exceed those of capital technology spillovers. Finally, industrial air pollution emission intensity demonstrates both spatial agglomeration and time lag effects. Environmental regulations and energy structure are shown to increase industrial air pollution emissions, while urbanization and foreign direct investment reduce industrial air pollution. Based upon these research results, some pertinent policy implications are proposed for China. Full article