Asian-Pacific Economic Literature最新文献

This paper employs the system generalised method of moments approach and panel data of Chinese resource-based cities at the prefecture level for the period of 2003–2019 to investigate the effects of two types of service sector agglomeration on industrial structure dynamics. The results show that an increase in ‘specialised agglomeration’ of services would inhibit industrial structure rationalisation and upgrading. However, an increase in ‘diversified’ agglomeration of services promotes industrial structure upgrading though it also inhibits industrial structure rationalisation. Furthermore, it is also found that an increase in diversified agglomeration would inhibit industrial structure rationalisation in eastern cities and industrial structure upgrading in western cities but promote industrial structure rationalisation and upgrading in central cities. These insights suggest the importance of fostering the appropriate form of service sector agglomeration within resource-based cities. Leveraging the synergistic linkages between the service sector and other industries could enhance the industrial structure optimisation of resource-based urban economies.

The issue of land financialisation has received considerable critical attention, with the literature focusing on the definition and process of land financialisation and its contribution to urban development. This paper draws upon the capitalist spatial production theory to explore how the ongoing financialisation process in the land market is related to the housing market. After controlling for observed city characteristics and unobserved city and year fixed effects, we find a positive correlation between land financialisation and housing prices. Furthermore, our results suggest that this positive effect is strengthened in tier-1 cities and when land transfer is fully marketised, but weakened when more affordable housing is available. Overall, this study contributes to the literature on land financialisation and housing prices by critically discussing the consequences of land financialisation on housing prices, providing new insights into the reasons for soaring housing prices, and enriching the knowledge of urban governance.

While tax revenues steadily rose in the decades prior to the onset of COVID-19, they continue to lag well behind high-income countries and some developing peers. The region continues to rely predominantly on indirect taxes, particularly relatively efficient consumption taxes. However, developing Asia's tax structure is less progressive compared to high-income countries. Government expenditures on education and health, vital for promoting equitable growth, were comparatively modest. Substantial fiscal policy stimulus in response to COVID-19, combined with the impact of the downturn on revenues, has severely weakened public finances in many countries. The combination of falling revenues and higher spending during COVID-19 has markedly widened deficits and caused a further rise in debt levels that were already rising. As the pandemic recedes, governments will need to carefully calibrate fiscal consolidation to safeguard fiscal sustainability while protecting the poor and vulnerable.

The influx of international tourists may affect the economic growth of destination countries by influencing the quality of life (QoL) of residents, the effects of which are unclear ex ante. Therefore, this study utilises the autoregressive distributed lag model to examine tourism-induced growth by taking into consideration the residents' QoL using Singapore as a case study. We also consider the factor of heterogeneous tourism demand by regions of origin in a market-based analysis using seemingly unrelated regression, motivated by the assumption that consumers from different markets differ widely over their preferences. This study seeks to contribute to an understanding of tourism as a source of sustainable economic development and as such provides important policy implications for practitioners and scholars alike.

This study examines the association between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and export variety (EV). We propose three hypotheses on how BRI may foster export markets (destinations) or export product lines. The estimates are based on a dataset constructed specifically for this analysis, covering 183 countries and linked with trade data from 1996 to 2019. We apply the instrumental variable (IV) approach in regressions for covering the endogeneity. The results indicate that participation in BRI is negatively related to EV. Specifically, we find evidence that, on average, BRI participants have less EV (by product and by destination) and greater export concentration. As regards participation in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and BRI meanwhile (AIIB_BRI and AIIB_MOU), the results show a more negative effect. And there are heterogeneous effects of BRI across different economies and sectors.

This study investigates the impact of technical non-tariff measures (NTMs), specifically technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS), of Vietnam on agricultural imports and the role of deep trade agreements. This issue has been primarily focused on advanced countries but rarely studied for developing countries. The estimates indicate that the impacts of technical NTMs on imports from least developed countries (LDCs) and non-LDCs are heterogeneous in terms of the measures' sophistication level. Simple technical NTMs, namely labelling, marking, and packaging requirements, increase agricultural imports from LDCs, while there is no significant impact on those from non-LDCs. Other categories of TBT and SPS NTMs impede imports from LDCs, while benefiting imports from non-LDCs. In addition, we found that deep trade agreements can ease the burdens of technical NTMs, but this is limited to imports from non-LDCs. The findings of this study can help policymakers in better regulating agricultural imports to prevent harmful imports with minimal impacts on the benefits from trade.

Using data at the HS-6 product level, this study presents evidence on the export survival of China's fresh fruit during the period 2002–2019, and identifies the impact of non-tariff measures (NTMs) on the hazard rate of trade disruption. The results show that the average length of 2239 trade spells is 5.16 years. Notably, 67.04 per cent of these spells are no more than three years long, whereas only 7.95 per cent are more than 18 years long. Compared with major fruit-exporting countries, the trade spell distribution of China's fresh fruit exports lacks advantages. The hazard rate can reach 0.41 in the first year of export and is negatively duration dependent. The implementation of NTMs by importing countries has significantly increased the hazard rate. The positive effect of NTMs on the hazard rate is primarily driven by non-technical measures. Notably, technical barriers to trade measures decrease the export hazard rate of China's fresh fruits with comparative advantages, because these measures focus on product quality. Meanwhile, non-technical measures increase the export hazard rate of such fruits; this may be because of the possible shock on the relevant fruit industry in the destination market.