Ku-Hsieh Chen

Analysis of regional productivity growth in China: A generalized metafrontier MPI approach

Abstract This paper analyzes the dynamics of Chinas productivity for the period 1996–2004 with a newly developed methodology — generalized metafrontier Malmquist productivity index (gMMPI). Implementing the gMMPI, this paper reviews the inequality of the coastal and non-coastal provinces, as well as the latent impact of scale efficiency change (SEC) for China. Using provincial data for the years 1996–2004, the empirical results are as follows. On average, China demonstrates an annual 3.191% productivity change, which is lower than 4.729% for the conventional MPI and accounts for about 26.508% of output growth over the period 1996–2004. Most of this change is propelled by technical progress, while a fraction is driven by the adjustment in production scale, and the efficiency change has an adverse effect. Furthermore, regional inequality is also found in this empirical work, and the productivity change of the coastal region is actually stronger than that of the non-coastal region. This paper also casts some focus on the China Western Development policy. Indeed, we do not find any outstanding achievement from the policy in the sample period, except that the west region sustained its rate of productivity change after 2000. Moreover, the SEC is found to be trivial in the advanced coastal region, but plays an important role in the relatively laggard non-coastal region. The implication of the positive SEC in the non-coastal region means that Chinas Western Development policy will improve the scale efficiency and the TFP growth of the west region.

Appraising the Economic Impact of the “Opening up to Mainland Chinese Tourist Arrivals” Policy on Taiwan with a Tourism-CGE Model

The purpose of this study is to establish a tourism-CGE model to appraise the “opening up to Mainland Chinese tourist arrivals” policy on Taiwan. Using the model, this study suggests that the multiplier effect of the Mainland Chinese tourists’ expenditure in Taiwan is 1.378, which is slightly lower than that for tourists from Japan and Korea. With 1,000 (3,000) Mainland Chinese tourist arrivals per day, labour demand for about 48,000 (144,000) people would be created, along with 38,146 (114,463) million New Taiwan dollars volume of product, which would account for about 0.354% (1.063%) of annual GDP growth. The results also reveal that the policy would not necessarily contribute positively to every industry, and industrial restructuring might occur. Finally, some tourism policy recommendations are discussed.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CO2 EMISSIONS AND FINANCIAL DEVELOPMENT

This paper examines the relationships among CO2 emissions, energy use, GDP, and financial development for 25 OECD countries over the 1971–2007 period. From the results of the panel FMOLS and the cross-sectional dependence regression, we do not find any support for the existence of the EKC for OECD countries. Moreover, the results present that the coefficient of financial development to CO2 emissions is negative and statistically significant for eight countries (Austria, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the U.S.). The findings of this study thus show that financial development can help EU countries to adjust their CO2 emissions.

Who upholds the surging gold price? The role of the central bank worldwide

Who upholds the surging gold price? Conventional wisdom suggests that the depreciation of the exchange rate, inflation and economic turmoil are the suspects. Nonetheless, while these factors cease, why does the gold price still stay around hikes? The gold market belongs to a global arena. Different from other commodities, its participants include the national central banks worldwide. However, surprisingly, the role played by these tremendous market participants’ gold holdings on the gold price has been ignored in past empirical works. This research focuses on central banks’ gold holdings to explore who upholds the surging gold price. Several interesting outcomes are derived. First, our empirical evidence shows an inverse phenomenon relative to news reports from the mass media that the gold holdings of central banks worldwide in fact continuously descend. Second, the mainstream countries of the world have not played a main role in the rising trend of the gold price in the recent decade; instead, newly emerging industrialized countries’ central banks’ gold holdings show their significant power in explaining causality to gold price fluctuations. Third, the reason for the persistent gold buying behaviour of emerging economies may be because the increase in the gold price delivers a kind of short squeeze effect to the central banks of emerging countries.

Revealing the International Spillovers Structure of Innovation for Asian Region

Abstract The objective of this study aims to provide an overall revelation of the magnitude, frame, flow, and output creation effect of cross-national and cross-sectoral spillover of innovation within Asia. Methodologically, Dietzenbachers framework for evaluating the innovative spillover effect is modified and extended to a cross-national and cross-sectoral context for accommodating this purpose, accompanied by the utilization of the Asian International I/O (AIO) table for the year 2000. Several results are thus achieved: (1) For the spillover structure, it is understood that the inter-sectoral dependence and vertical specialization in production serves as the nexus for the skeleton of rent spillover. (2) The extent of process innovative spillover is at a level of approximately 90%, while the extent of product innovative spillover is roughly in the 40–50% range. (3) On average, a 1% process innovation would create the total Asian output by a 0.0025–0.1387% margin, and a 1% product innovation would contribute 0.0010–0.0575% of the total output. (4) The United States, Japan, and China rank as the top three countries equipped with the capability of creating the most plentiful innovative spillover effect on the Asian region overall. (5) The United States and Japan still occupy the position of leading flying geese to date, while China might emerge as an industrial innovative leading flying goose in the near future. (6) Under the prerequisite of regional development, this study has tabulated the sector rankings according to the strength of overall spillover effect by country as a reference for tactically reallocating industrial and innovative policy from a regional development perspective.

Spillover effects of innovation: Taiwanese evidence

This article evaluates spillover effects of innovation of Taiwans industries by using the input–output (IO) analysis framework. On the basis of IO tables for the years 1981, 1986 1991 and 1996, the structure, magnitude and ranking list of the spillover effect of innovation are revealed. Additionally, several findings are also achieved from the empirical results. First, the spillover effect of process innovation is stronger and about more than twice the spillover effect of product innovation in Taiwan. Furthermore, Taiwans industries manifest a dispersive technological distribution structure and the spillover effect of the process innovation is more dispersive than that of product innovation. Moreover, Taiwanese industries are rather dependent on foreign technologies, particularly in terms of product innovation.

Threshold Effects of Technological Regimes for the Stochastic Frontier Model

In the domain of measuring productivity, the stochastic frontier (SF) model has advanced in leaps and bounds and attracted a large amount of academic attention. Inherently, the model utilises input/output combinations of production units as references to construct a frontier for measuring efficiency. Silent curiosity has followed the model for years in regard to whether all the units actually share an identical technology, or more specifically, how many technological groups should be included in the sample observations. This study directly spotlights the perplexity by employing econometric concepts and techniques to make the data talk and to show the due grouping points. Using the computer, communications, and audio and video electronics products manufacturing sectors during 2001 in Taiwan as the sample, the empirical work revealed that the production possibility set of the sample industry should be divided into six regimes, namely micro, micro–small, small, moderate–medium, medium, and large enterprises. For the smallest- and largest-scale firm groups, the size–efficiency nexus is proven to be positive, while for the micro-small firm group, smaller is more efficient than larger. It is also implied that under the appropriate segmentation framework, the size–efficiency nexus has been confirmed as not monotonic in nature and depending on firm size.