Yun-Wing Sung

Family-based models for childhood-obesity intervention: a systematic review of randomized controlled trials.

Effective interventions are needed to address the growing epidemic of childhood obesity. In the past 35 years, family‐based approach has gradually developed as a preferred intervention. This review aimed to examine the methodological rigour and treatment effectiveness of family‐based interventions according to intervention types and theoretical orientations. A total of 15 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of family‐based lifestyle interventions for children and adolescents aged 2–19 years were included. The adapted Methodological Quality Rating Scales (MQRS) and a four‐grade qualitative scoring scheme were adopted to evaluate the methodological rigour and the effectiveness of treatment, respectively. The average MQRS score was 7.93 out of 14 points. Ten of the 15 RCTs had well aligned their research questions with appropriate research methods. The overall short‐term outcome of the15 RCTs were satisfactory with an average score of 3.1. Family‐based interventions rooted in behaviour theory achieved better results than those theoretically connected to family systems theory in terms of treatment effectiveness. Results suggest future studies to improve the methodological design and continue to explore the potential of the family systems approach.

Made in China: From World Sweatshop to a Global Manufacturing Center?*

This paper argues that foreign investment is a second-best instrument that helps China to succeed in export-led growth by circumventing the many distortions that discriminate against domestic private enterprises. Chinas dependence on foreign investment for exports should decline as China builds up its market economy, but its generous preferences for foreign investors may unduly prolong its dependence. It is found that Chinas exports are increasingly dominated by the low value-added processing exports of foreign affiliates. In the case of Hong Kong investment in export processing on the Chinese mainland, the value-added in the Mainland is often less than that of re-exporting the output in Hong Kong. Since 2004, China has amended its treatment of foreign investments to attract higher-quality foreign investment and upgrade processing exports in order to transform itself from a world sweatshop to a global manufacturing center. The policies appear to have the intended effects.

Growth of Hong Kong Before and After its Reversion to China: The China Factor

The paper focuses on the Hong Kong economy and attempts to measure the contribution of Hong Kongs integration with mainland China to its GDP growth rate. Two linkages have received particular attention, namely, Hong Kongs foreign direct investment (FDI) in China and immigrants from China. While the former is assumed to stimulate capital investment in Hong Kong but at the same time to reduce human capital formation (owing to a shrinkage of its domestic manufacturing sector), the latter is assumed to further reduce Hong Kongs average human capital because immigrants tend to be less educated. By making some assumptions about the future trajectories of Hong Kong direct investment in China and Chinese immigrants into Hong Kong after its reversion to China, the paper offers some predictions about Hong Kongs future economic growth.

Costs and Benefits of Export‐Oriented Foreign Investment: The Case of China

The costs and benefits of export-oriented FDI have been discussed by Helleiner (1973, 1998), Watanabe (1972), Sharpston (1975), and others. Processed exports generated from FDI have constituted over half of the exports of Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and China. Despite the importance of processed exports, empirical studies of their costs and benefits are difficult due to lack of data, especially on transfer earnings. Data on the division of benefits between the source and host countries are scarce and unreliable. This paper examines the costs and benefits of export-oriented foreign investment for China. China has been highly successful in exporting and in attracting FDI, especially export-oriented FDI from Hong Kong. Since 1993, China has become the second largest recipient of FDI in the world after the US, and Hong Kong has become the world’s fourth largest source of FDI after the US, UK, and Germany. China’s processed exports are largely re-exported via Hong Kong. As a result, good data on the total value-added of processed exports for Mainland China and for Hong Kong are available. It is found that the rate of value-added for Mainland China is relatively low compare with that for Hong Kong, indicating transfer pricing and absence of linkages in the mainland. This appears to be due to the rigidity of China’s economic system which hampers backward and forward linkages. The mainland is thus dependent on Hong Kong for many services in the value-added chain. However, the rate of value-added for China has increased substantially since 1996, indicating an increase in both backward and forward linkages.

Gender Wage Differentials and Occupational Segregation in Hong Kong, 1981–1996

This paper analyses gender wage differentials and the role of occupational segregation in Hong Kong. It is found that the female–male earnings ratio increased substantially from 0.710 in 1981 to 0.839 in 1996. A decomposition which takes into account occupational differences shows that the gender pay gap is mostly within occupations and most of the intra-occupation wage gap is unexplained. The gender pay differential due to occupational differences is small; in fact, the overall occupational segregation favours females in Hong Kong.

Tourism and economic diversification in Hong Kong

Abstract Input-output techniques are used to assess the role of tourism in the economic diversification in Hong Kong. It is found that, in comparison with domestic manufacturing, the value-added content and labor productivity of tourism are relatively high, and tourism requires very little energy, not many laborers, moderate amounts of capital and appreciable amounts of skills, all of which are ideal in an environment of rocketing energy costs, rising wages, and fast growth with rapid accumulation of capital and skills. Moreover, the shares of tourism in GDP and total employment have been increasing due to decreasing leakage. On the demand side, the growth of tourist exports is more stable than many major commodity exports partly because tourism is less subject to import protectionism. Tourism is thus considered a prime choice in the current economic diversification of Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong Economy through the 1997 Barrier

History is full of surprises. In the early 1980s when China first announced its plans to take Hong Kong back, people had expected mass emigration, capital flight, and economic downturn in 1997. Instead, 1997 is a year of economic prosperity, capital inflow, and an influx of returning migrants. The Hang Seng Index reached a historic high of 15,197 points on June 27, 1997, the last trading day under British sovereignty. Real estate prices rose 35% in the year preceding June 1997. Despite the euphoria of the handover ceremonies, the watershed year for the Hong Kong economy is not 1997 but 1979, the year of Chinas opening. Hong Kong, which had lost its hinterland during the Cold War era, regained it that year. Since then, the economies of Hong Kong and the mainland have increasingly intertwined, and Hong Kong and the mainland have become one anothers foremost partner in both trade and investment. The year 1997 will see a strengthening of the trend started in 1979 rather than a radical new departure. Another reason 1997 is not a watershed is that the handover had been known 14 years in advance, and people have had ample time to make adjustments. For instance, Hong Kong residents who were edgy about communism and had the means to acquire a foreign passport had already done so. Firms that wished to move their registration or diversify their assets overseas did, and by mid-1993, 60% of all listed companies in Hong Kong had moved their registration abroad. According to the theory of rational expectations in economic literature, expected events have no impact on the economy at the time the events occur because all adjustments have already taken place beforehand. Only unexpected events have impacts on the economy. Such events do occur in history. The 1989 Tiananmen incident is one example, and Deng Xiaopings 1992 Southern Tour in support of economic reforms is another.

China's Economic Reforms: The Debates in China

Unlike the Hungarians, who had agreed on a programme of economic reform two years before it was implemented, Chinas economic reforms evolved in the midst of bitter debates and controversies. Typically, unfavourable developments in the economy would trigger off opposition to the economic reform, expressed in theoretical disagreements; meanwhile the reform programme would have to mark time to await theoretical clearance. It was not until October 1984, six years after the reforms first began, that the Chinese leaders finally formulated a model or programme of economic reform in a formal decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).1 There are three reasons for this extraordinarily long gestation period. First, the reforms began as a series of localised experiments which were later adopted by central authorities. There was no direct relationship between the local experiments in Sichuan where Zhao Ziyang, now Premier, was at the time First Secretary of the provincial Party and the national reform programme.2 The Sichuan initiatives placed overwhelming emphasis on enterprises rather than on unified planning control, whereas in the national discussion those economists and central leaders in charge of research and propaganda still dealt with reform of the planning system in terms of pre-Cultural Revolution thinking. Second, the economic reforms were initiated at a time when the national economy was in a state of macro-economic and structural imbalance. This called for economic readjustment (retrenchment) andcast doubt on the immediate relevance of the economic reform. The ensuing debate on whether economic readjustment should