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This article is the first empirical attempt using a panel-gravity trade model to analyze the bilateral trade patterns between China and 13 OPEC member countries over the period 1998–2014. Our findings reveal that the gravity equation fits the data reasonably well. We confirm the existence of long-term relationships between the bilateral trade flows and the main components of gravity model-GDP, income (GDPper capita), the difference in income, exchange rate, the openness level, distance, and WTO membership—through the Fixed effects (FE), Random effects (RE), and the FMOLS approaches. The estimation results show that the trade pattern between China and OPEC member countries relies on the Heckscher-Ohlin (H-O) theory, thus being explained by difference in factor endowments such as energy resources and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Thanks to successful economic growth, social development, and strict implementation of family planning policies, the demographic transition in China has been accomplished at a much earlier stage of development than in other countries. I call this outcome "aging before affluence." As a result of this demographic transition, China has already passed through its Lewis turning point, and its demographic dividend from the decline in the population dependence ratio is about to end. I identify a potential nexus between "aging before affluence" and the "middle-income trap." China is losing comparative advantage in labor-intensive industries, but China is not ready to gain comparative advantage in technology-intensive and capital-intensive industries. For China to avoid the middle-income trap, it must (1) transform economic growth to a consumptiondriven pattern; (2) shift the labor-intensive industries to the central and western regions; and (3) speed up technological catching up. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article demonstrates that the growth of China's exports in recent years is consistent with the Heckscher–Ohlin–Vanek (HOV) prediction of the factor content of trade based on international differences in factor endowments, after adjusting for substantial differences in factor-specific productivity. A comparison of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development input–output data in the year 2000 shows that China's labor productivity relative to the United States is the lowest in a sample of 33 diverse countries, although China's capital is more productive than US capital. This in turn demonstrates the importance of a factor-specific rather than factor-neutral productivity adjustment common in much of the HOV literature. The use of value-added data to measure factor usage helps to correct for unobserved differences in factor qualities and differences in productivity across sectors, as is demonstrated for China. China's low average labor productivity reflects the structure of the Chinese economy where most employment is still in the inefficient agriculture and service sectors, with only 11% of employment in the more modern export-oriented manufacturing sector. Due to a trade surplus, China exports both labor and capital but Leamer's (The Journal of Political Economy 1980;88: 495–503) test for trade-revealed factor abundance confirms that China is labor abundant even after substantial factor-specific productivity adjustments. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dongguan, an emerging world-famous manufacturing metropolis in South China has attracted considerable attention of both academic and policy research over the past two decades. Industrial clusters driven by the influx of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Dongguan have been primarily based on qualitative analysis, while without any differentiations of the sources of FDI. Based on the firm-level statistical data and on-site investigation, this study attempts to explore quantitatively and comparatively the extent and patterns of industrial agglomerations of Hong Kong and Taiwan manufacturing investment in Dongguan. Through comprehensive town-level quantitative analysis, the paper exemplifies that Hong Kong and Taiwan manufacturing agglomerations in various towns of Dongguan that have evolved in different sectoral and spatial patterns. Being consistent with the earlier qualitative analysis, the distinctive trajectories could be interpreted by the different firm linkages and comparative advantages of Hong Kong and Taiwan as source regions, as well as the distinct interactions with Dongguan as host region in the context of global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]