(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
What Accounts for the Rising Sophistication of China's Exports?
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/13771.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Accounts for the Rising Sophistication of China's Exports?

Author

Listed:
  • Zhi Wang
  • Shang-Jin Wei

Abstract

Chinese exports have become increasingly sophisticated. This has generated anxiety in developed countries as competitive pressure may increasingly be felt outside labor-intensive industries. Using product-level data on exports from different cities within China, this paper investigates the contributing factors to China's rising export sophistication. Somewhat surprisingly, neither processing trade nor foreign invested firms are found to play an important role in generating the increased overlap between China's export structure and that of high-income countries. Instead, improvement in human capital and government policies in the form of tax-favored high-tech zones appear to be the key to the country's evolving export structure. On the other hand, processing trade, foreign invested firms, and government-sponsored high-tech zones all have contributed significantly to raising the unit values of Chinese exports within a given product category.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhi Wang & Shang-Jin Wei, 2008. "What Accounts for the Rising Sophistication of China's Exports?," NBER Working Papers 13771, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13771
    Note: ITI
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13771.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raymond Fisman & Peter Moustakerski & Shang-Jin Wei, 2008. "Outsourcing Tariff Evasion: A New Explanation for Entrepôt Trade," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(3), pages 587-592, August.
    2. Ricardo Hausmann & Jason Hwang & Dani Rodrik, 2007. "What you export matters," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-25, March.
    3. Dani Rodrik, 2006. "What's So Special about China's Exports?," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 14(5), pages 1-19, September.
    4. Hallak, Juan Carlos, 2006. "Product quality and the direction of trade," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 238-265, January.
    5. Juan Carlos Hallak & Peter K. Schott, 2011. "Estimating Cross-Country Differences in Product Quality," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 417-474.
    6. Peter K. Schott, 2006. "The Relative Sophistication of Chinese Exports," NBER Working Papers 12173, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Finger, J M & Kreinin, M E, 1979. "A Measure of 'Export Similarity' and Its Possible Uses," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 89(356), pages 905-912, December.
    8. Raymond Fisman & Shang-Jin Wei, 2004. "Tax Rates and Tax Evasion: Evidence from "Missing Imports" in China," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(2), pages 471-500, April.
    9. Long, Cheryl & Hale, Galina, 2006. "What Determines Technological Spillovers of Foreign Direct Investment: Evidence from China," Center Discussion Papers 28412, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    10. Lionel Fontagné & Guillaume Gaulier & Soledad Zignago, 2007. "Specialisation across Varieties within Products and North-South Competition," Working Papers 2007-06, CEPII research center.
    11. Peter K. Schott, 2004. "Across-Product Versus Within-Product Specialization in International Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 647-678.
    12. David Hummels & Peter J. Klenow, 2005. "The Variety and Quality of a Nation's Exports," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 704-723, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhi Wang & Shang-Jin Wei, 2008. "The Chinese Export Bundles - Patterns, Puzzles and Possible Explanations," Macroeconomics Working Papers 22275, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    2. Van Assche, Ari & Van Biesebroeck, Johannes, 2018. "Functional upgrading in China's export processing sector," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 245-262.
    3. Kozo Kiyota, 2010. "Are US Exports Different from China’s Exports? Evidence from Japan’s Imports," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(10), pages 1302-1324, October.
    4. Gozgor, Giray & Can, Muhlis, 2016. "Does Export Product Quality Matter for CO2 Emissions? Evidence from China," MPRA Paper 71873, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon, 2024. "Export product quality and inclusivity in developing countries," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(3), pages 807-843, July.
    6. Cong S. Pham & Mehmet Ali Ulubaşoğlu, 2016. "The role of endowments, technology and size in international trade: new evidence from product-level data," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(7), pages 913-937, October.
    7. Roberto Álvarez & Sebastián Claro, 2006. "The China Phenomenon: Price, Quality or Variety?," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 411, Central Bank of Chile.
    8. Amit Khandelwal, 2010. "The Long and Short (of) Quality Ladders," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1450-1476.
    9. Sarantis Kalyvitis, 2015. "Who exports high-quality products? Some empirical regularities from Greek exporting firms," Working Papers 201, Bank of Greece.
    10. Christian Henn & Chris Papageorgiou & Jose Manuel Romero & Nikola Spatafora, 2020. "Export Quality in Advanced and Developing Economies: Evidence from a New Data Set," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 68(2), pages 421-451, June.
    11. Gideon Ndubuisi & Solomon Owusu, 2022. "Trust, Efficient Contracting and Export Upgrading," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(6), pages 2708-2729, December.
    12. Maurice Kugler & Eric Verhoogen, 2012. "Prices, Plant Size, and Product Quality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(1), pages 307-339.
    13. Roberto Álvarez & Sebastián Claro, 2006. "The china price: evidence and some implications," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 33(2 Year 20), pages 117-140, December.
    14. Angela Cheptea & Lionel Fontagné & Soledad Zignago, 2014. "European export performance," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 150(1), pages 25-58, February.
    15. Wei-Chih Chen, 2013. "The Extensive and Intensive Margins of Exports: The Role of Innovation," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(5), pages 607-635, May.
    16. Lionel Fontagné & Guillaume Gaulier & Soledad Zignago, 2007. "Specialisation across Varieties within Products and North-South Competition," Working Papers 2007-06, CEPII research center.
    17. Sofia Anyfantaki & Sarantis Kalyvitis & Margarita Katsimi & Eirini Thomaidou, 2018. "Export pricing at the firm level with panel data," Working Papers 241, Bank of Greece.
    18. Curzi, Daniele & Pacca, Lucia, 2015. "Price, quality and trade costs in the food sector," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 147-158.
    19. repec:lic:licosd:33913 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Curzi, Daniele & Pacca, Lucia, 2014. "Estimating Food Quality from Trade Data: An Empirical Assessment," 2014 Third Congress, June 25-27, 2014, Alghero, Italy 173106, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA).
    21. Christopher Hansman & Jonas Hjort & Gianmarco León-Ciliotta & Matthieu Teachout, 2020. "Vertical Integration, Supplier Behavior, and Quality Upgrading among Exporters," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(9), pages 3570-3625.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13771. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.