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Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the multifaced aspects and consequences of the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) from an Australia-China Relationship perspective. Design/methodology/approach: This paper leverages the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis to examine both the internal and external factors that affect Australia and China in the context of the CBAM. In addition, we employ the PEST (Political, Economic, Social and Technological) framework to identify effective strategies for Australia-China cooperation following the implementation of the CBAM. Findings: Our analysis reveals numerous mutual interests and opportunities for bilateral collaboration, despite challenges and threats, positioning the CBAM as a potentially significant catalyst for joint initiatives. Practical implications: This paper proposes 10 potential areas for Australia and China cooperation from the political economic social and technological PEST dimensions. Originality/value: This paper makes a pioneering attempt to explore potential strategies, both individually, and together, that Australia and China can adopt to manage the impact and consequence of CBAM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper quantifies the effects of shocks in bilateral political relations on Australia's merchandise goods exports to China between 2001 and 2020. Using a vector autoregression framework, our estimates suggest that short-term fluctuations in political relations have no long-run effects on Australia's aggregate export growth to China over this period, nor in any of three sub-periods analysed. A disaggregated analysis of 19 HS2 sectors reveals heterogenous short-run effects across sectors and time periods, with numerous sectors indicating the seemingly perverse finding that an increase in political cooperation/conflict is associated with a decrease/increase in export growth, with a lag of one to four months. We propose two hypotheses that are consistent with these findings, 'doubling down' and 'dropping the ball', contributing new understanding to the political relations-trade nexus in the context of a bilateral relationship that will likely be characterised by both cooperation and conflict in the decades ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins by showing that even after conditioning for factors that might justifiably lead to a country having relatively high leverage, China remains a debt outlier. In this sense, China can be regarded as over-leveraged and its debt levels may present potential risks to growth and financial stability. The corporate sector is central to China's debt story, accounting for two-thirds of the total. Moreover, the corporate sector has been mostly responsible for China's leverage cycles, including the leveraging up since 2008 and an earlier deleveraging phase starting in 2003. Two major but under-appreciated drivers of Chinese corporate leverage cycles are then identified. The most important is the share of internally funded corporate capital expenditure, which is a combined consequence of evolving corporate earnings and capital expenditure. The second is the rising importance of real estate and construction firms as holders of corporate debt. China's corporate leverage landscape is also shown to be more complex than a story of zombie state-owned enterprises in industrial segments with excess capacity being ever-greened with loans from state banks. A balanced mix of policy responses will be needed to manage a warranted and orderly deleveraging cycle in the years ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We characterize the cyclical properties of fiscal policy in China along two related dimensions. First, we estimate the sign and size of the fiscal policy multiplier. Second, we assess whether fiscal policy is conducted pro- or counter-cyclically. To account for the challenges posed by China's vast geography, we use data at the provincial level. We find that (i) fiscal policy generally has 'Keynesian' effects, and (ii) fiscal policy is mostly conducted pro-cyclically. This means that fiscal policy is more an element of destabilization than a tool for stabilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike in OECD countries, fluctuations in output growth in China are not straightforward in their interpretation. On the one hand, they reflect the business cycle, which results from shocks to aggregate demand. On the other hand, they also reflect the structural transformations that have accompanied China’s transition to a market economy. Demand shocks can be identified by virtue of the persistence of their impact. This paper decomposes the variance in provincial, regional, and national output growth according to its persistence characteristics. The results suggest that during the reform period, only a minority of output growth variance can be attributed to demand shocks and business cycle fluctuations. It is also found that there is substantial heterogeneity in the persistence characteristics of output growth across provinces. Implications of the findings for macroeconomic policy are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic theory posits numerous channels through which FDI might create positive spillovers for domestic firms. However, the results of empirical studies that have sought to document these spillovers have been mixed. One explanation for this variation is that the capacity of domestic firms to absorb spillovers might vary. In the present paper, we explore these issues in the case of China. Aside from being one of the world's leading hosts of foreign direct investment, China makes for an interesting case study because its provinces vary greatly with respect to those factors most commonly held to influence absorptive capacity, such as the initial level of technology in domestic firms. This paper begins by empirically establishing that the spillovers from foreign direct investment do indeed vary across provinces. Threshold values for various factors that influence absorptive capacity factors are then estimated and it is found that conditions in many provinces presently fall short of these values. This provides an obvious focus of attention for China's policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WTO entry in 2001 heralded a new stage in the reform of China's banking sector. With the reality that foreign banks would be extended national treatment by the end of 2006, China's banks faced the imperative to reform in earnest. They began reforms from a variety of different starting points and have pursued a variety of different reform approaches. Five years on, this paper assesses efficiency levels in 11 of China's most prominent banks. The results, obtained using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), suggest that differences in efficiency levels are actually quite small. On the one hand, this finding is encouraging because it suggests that few of China's major banks lag behind the pack. On the other hand, it also implies that efficiency levels almost certainly do lag in China's less prominent banks, which together still account for more than 40% of total banking system assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2001, foreign investors have been permitted to acquire minority ownership stakes in China's banks. This paper assesses whether there is any evidence of a cost efficiency payoff in those banks that have taken on foreign investment. Data envelopment analysis is first used to generate measures of cost efficiency for China's banks over the period 2001—2006. A second stage regression is then performed to determine whether foreign investment has an impact on cost efficiency. The results indicate a positive relationship, although one that is not statistically significant. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese investment in Australia is emerging as an important part of the Australia-China economic relationship. This paper overviews the major characteristics of Chinese investment in Australia up to the present: its volume, form, sectoral distribution, and major players. It then discusses the policies that have been driving recent increases in investment and those that are likely to have a more profound impact over the longer term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capital account convertibility in China is on the rise. In this paper we consider the impact that removing remaining capital controls might have on the volume of China's international capital flows. Better understanding of this capital flow response can shed light on China's current degree of international financial integration, which has important implications for policy decisions such as whether China should move toward a more flexible exchange rate regime. It is also relevant to discussing the financial stability consequences of removing remaining capital controls. The main finding is that China's capital account is already quite open, thus implying a tradeoff presently exists between exchange rate stability on the one hand and monetary independence on the other. In terms of financial stability, the results generally serve to allay fears that further opening the capital account would compromise China's international payments ability or disrupt global capital flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1949 Shanghai was the leading international financial center (IFC) in Asia. Recently the push of Shanghai to regain its long lost status of a regional IFC has begun to attract widespread interest. This paper first draws upon the IFC literature to highlight the factors that are considered to be important in determining the potential of a city to emerge as an IFC. Shanghai's progress is then measured against these criteria and is also placed in a comparative perspective by measuring against Hong Kong and Singapore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current level of economic integration between China and ASEAN will largely determine the scale of the impact of China's WTO entry and the China-ASEAN free trade agreement. This article supplements volume-based measures of real and financial integration between China and the ASEAN-5 with those based on the international parity conditions. The results indicate that China's integration with the ASEAN-5 is already relatively advanced with respect to goods and services markets. Financial market integration however remains significantly incomplete. The main implication of this finding is that the impact of future liberalization will be felt most acutely in financial markets. This makes reforms complimentary to greater levels of external financial liberalization, such as regulatory reforms aimed at improving the risk management practices of financial institutions, matters of urgency for both China and the ASEAN-5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State-owned banks remain dominant in China's financial sector despite over two decades of gradual financial liberalization. Their performance is typically evaluated using commercial banking criteria. The standard view is that because state banks have experienced declining profitability and capital adequacy, they have been a drain on past economic development and endanger future growth prospects. However, we argue that state banks have strong development bank characteristics and hence warrant different performance criteria. The analysis in this paper suggests that while thier commercial performance may have been poor, the overall impact of state banks on China's economic development appears to have been both positive and sustainable. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The much-publicized declining financial performance of China's state-owned enterprises (SOIEs) is generally assumed to be evidence of their worsening economic efficiency. However in this paper we show that during 1980-1996, total factor productivity actually increased at an average annual rate of 1.90% and was responsible for 41% of the rise in SOIE output. The decline in financial performance can be attributed to their terms of trade deteriorating at an average annual rate of 3.19% due to increased competition and price reform. Numerous other factors, apart from economic efficiency, can further explain why the level of SOIE profitability has lagged behind non-state-owned industrial enterprises. While these conclusions do not imply that SOIEs have become efficient by international standards, they do suggest that their economic performance was significantly better than is generally claimed. They also confirm the need to evaluate economic performance directly, using criteria appropriate to the Chinese context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]