Asia and the Global Economy最新文献

After the RCEP implementation in 2022, trade differences emerged between Japan and South Korea with China, especially in semiconductors. Japan's exports to China declined, while South Korea's grew. This study uses qualitative and quantitative methods to explain post-RCEP semiconductor trade differences, focusing on value chain complementarity, new tariff rates, and U.S. factors. Three conclusions: 1) Within the global value chain, the different positions of Japan and South Korea in the semiconductor sectors compared to China result in varying levels of market complementarity between Japan and China and South Korea and China; South Korea, in particular, exhibits a significantly higher potential market. 2) In terms of reducing tariff barriers under RCEP, compared to Japan, South Korea experienced a more substantial decline in semiconductor tariff rates in the Chinese market. 3) The non-tariff barrier sanctions imposed by the United States on Chinese semiconductors in 2022 influenced trade choices for Japan and South Korea. Japan, being more loyal to the United States, tends to align with U.S. policies, leading to a reduction in semiconductor trade with China.

This study applies Keynesian macroeconomic theory in the ARDL model to compare the growth effects of the US's AGOA and China's FOCAC multilateral trading systems in South Africa from the first quarter of 2001 to the fourth quarter of 2022. The study uses South Africa's net exports with the corresponding partner as a proxy for each multilateral trading system. This quantification stems from the fact that South Africa's trade with the US and China has significantly improved since the establishment of AGOA and FOCAC in 2000. Our findings show that none of the multilateral trading systems contribute significantly to South Africa's economic growth. Rather, they appear to be used as strategic initiatives to gain access to mineral resources and facilitate the movement of mining machinery and other inputs into South Africa. To some extent, they are used as market-seeking initiatives, particularly FOCAC. It is worth noting, however, that the mineral resource preferences of these systems vary: while China prioritizes mineral products, the US prioritizes precious metals. This suggests that China and the US scramble for natural resources in South Africa, and possibly Africa in general, is complementary rather than competitive.

China has been implementing energy efficiency and CO₂ emission reduction schemes at the provincial level that have been embedded in the National Five Year Plans of the country. We set out to investigate the relationship between R&D expenditures and CO₂ emissions in China at the province level in the context of the planned emissions reduction targets. We explore the possibility of the existence of a non-linear relationship between R&D expenditures and CO₂ emissions with a non-parametric methodology, a fixed effect panel data quantile (FEQR) regression estimator applied to a panel of 30 provinces. We stratify the sample according to the five emissions reduction target tiers of the 12^th Five-Year National Plan of China and we investigate the role of R&D expenditures in emissions reduction within each of the tiers. We find an inverse U relationship with different turning points for the three middle tiers and a U-shaped relationship for the tier under the most stringent environmental regulation. We find no effect in the tier with the least stringent emissions reduction targets. A further investigation shows that the above results are attributed to sectors with relatively low energy intensity and not to the sectors of heavy industry. The results allow us to draw broad conclusions about the effectiveness of investment in new technologies as a means of meeting the CO₂ targets in China.

This paper reports on an empirical analysis of 42,094 public/private companies in China and 21 Eastern European countries to grasp the actual state and determinants of board gender diversity in emerging market firms. We confirmed that firms in these countries are comparable to those in advanced nations in terms of the prevalence of firms recruiting female board members and the female share of board directorships. Furthermore, in emerging market countries, internal promotions are used as often as, or even more often than, external ones to recruit women to director positions. The results revealed that board composition and ownership structure are important determinants of the gender diversity of the corporate board in emerging market firms. We also found that the effects of these factors vary significantly depending on the country/region and the listing status of firms and that two qualitatively different decision-making stages related to the appointment of women to board positions (i.e., a decision as to whether to appoint any women to the board and a decision as to how many board positions should be reserved for women) have a substantial impact on the empirical results.

The international trading system is under threat. Many observers have already expressed serious concerns about the impact of Covid, the war in Ukraine, tensions over Taiwan and other natural and man-made disasters and their effects on the international trading system. Some even doubt its viability and chances of survival. The purpose of this paper is to assess the weight of those arguments. It is argued that the turmoil in global markets is, of course, a factor endangering the system, but the system is threatened even more by its own weaknesses. These are various imperfections in the international trade agreements in the WTO which are dividing the international community into separate groups. It is also shown that economic theory does not help us much to show the directions for policy makers to reach optimal trade agreements. It is argued that the splitting of countries into different negotiating and trading blocs is the optimal step under present conditions.

The rise of “new economic statecraft”—intervention in trade and investment for foreign policy reasons—is increasingly threatening the stability of the global economic system. Building on previous work, we consider the types of intervention we have seen, classifying state measures as behind the border, at the border, and beyond the border. In addition, in the past, we have focused on understanding variation in new forms of economic statecraft through a five-factor model. This paper's central goal is to evaluate alternatives for constraining economic statecraft via institutional approaches. To this end, we draw on an analytical classification framework to theoretically and empirically analyze both sectoral and overall bilateral, minilateral, and multilateral institutional approaches to glean lessons for the management of new economic statecraft.

After a year of record international trade in 2022, it is uncertain whether the future of the global economy is fragmentation or a new institutional structure. The challenges are to re-establish a dispute resolution mechanism, as the WTO process currently allows decisions to be appealed into oblivion, and to extend the coverage of world trade law to address changes in world trade since 1995. This paper argues that the best option for a beyond-WTO institutional order is an expanded Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and that, absent a functioning WTO appeal system, the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement (MPIA) is a way to resolve appeals. This could lead to a three-tier global trade system as the expanded CPTPP membership observes the highest standard world trade rules, a second group accepts WTO rules but no more, and a third group has no interest in being bound by world trade rules. On the post-2017 record, the USA could be in any of these three groups. The leading Asian trading nations have a key role to play in ensuring that the first group accounts for the majority of world trade, and to encourage countries to want to follow CPTPP standards and to be at the table when extensions to these standards are discussed.

Moving away from a fixed exchange rate in 2005, China has gradually enlarged the band of fluctuations of Renminbi (RMB) and implemented various reforms on its central parity to have a more flexible exchange rate regime. This paper studies the nature of the exchange rate regime in China since the exchange regime reform of August 2015. Relying on the self-exciting threshold autoregressive (SETAR) model, it identifies endogenously the band of inaction beyond which the People's bank of China (China's central bank) starts to intervene in the foreign exchange market to restrict further fluctuations. Based on the comparison of the estimated threshold with the official band, this paper shows that the RMB/USD exchange rate followed an intermediate regime similar to the crawling band but with only one single threshold of intervention which is much lower than the upper boundary of the announced band.