Assessing the effects of technological progress on energy efficiency in the construction industry: A case of China

Energy-saving technologies in buildings have received great attention from energy efficiency researchers in the construction sector. Traditional research tends to focus on the energy used during building operation and in construction materials production, but it usually neglects the energy consumed in the building construction process. Very few studies have explored the impacts of technological progress on energy efficiency in the construction industry. This paper presents a model of the building construction process based on Cobb-Douglas production function. The model estimates the effects of technological progress on energy efficiency with the objective to examine the role that technological progress plays in energy savings in China's construction industry. The modeling results indicated that technological progress improved energy efficiency by an average of 7.1% per year from 1997 to 2014. Furthermore, three main technological progress factors (the efficiency of machinery and equipment, the proportion change of the energy structure, and research and development investment) were selected to analyze their effects on energy efficiency improvement. These positive effects were verified, and results show the effects of first two factors are significant. Finally, recommendations for promoting energy efficiency in the construction industry are proposed

A quantitative analysis of China’s structural transformation

Between 1978 and 2003 the Chinese economy experienced a remarkable 5.7 percent annual growth of GDP per labor. At the same time, there has been a noticeable transformation of the economy: the share of workers in agriculture decreased from over 70 percent to less than 50 percent. We distinguish three sectors: private agriculture and nonagriculture and public nonagriculture. A growth accounting exercise reveals that the main source of growth was TFP in the private nonagricultural sector. The reallocation of labor from agriculture to nonagriculture accounted for 1.9 percent out of the 5.7 percent growth in output per labor. The reallocation of labor from the public to the private sector also accounted for a significant part of growth in the 1996-2003 period. We calibrate a general equilibrium model where the driving forces are public investment and employment, as well as sectorial TFP derived from our growth accounting exercise. The model tracks the historical employment share of agriculture and the labor productivities of all three sectors quite well.China

Policies drain the North China Plain: Agricultural policy and groundwater depletion in Luancheng County, 1949-2000

Agricultural production / Groundwater / Aquifers / Water shortage / Irigation efficiency / Agricultural policy / Crop production / Wastewaters / Water management / Hydrology / Economic development / Crop yield / Cotton / Wheat / Sprinkler irrigation / Water conservation / Water use efficiency / Pumping / Water balance / Vegetables / Rural economy / Irrigated framing

Reform and Competitive Selection in China: An Analysis of Firm Exits

This paper considers aspects of the competitive selection process in China - firm entry, survival, and exit - in an important sector of manufacturing, looking in particular for changes resulting from the latest stage of reforms. Using industry survey data from a province in North-East China, we find substantial differences in the process between ownership types. By conducting a simple decomposition of the aggregate productivity growth and exploring the determinants of firm’s exit using a hazard rate model, we observe a substantial rate of churning of enterprises in the sector, and find that the competitive selection processes operate, for small and collectively owned enterprises (COEs), in a manner consistent with a private market economy. In contrast, such processes appear not to be functioning for state owned enterprises (SOEs). We conclude that competitive selection in China is not providing a sufficiently strong substitute for corporate governance based on ownership.Competition; Exit; Productivity, Hazard Models

Ethnic Scientific Communities and International Technology Diffusion

This study explores the importance of knowledge transfer for international technology diffusion by examining ethnic scientific and entrepreneurial communities in the US and their ties to their home countries. US ethnic research communities are quantified by applying an ethnic-name database to individual patent records. International patent citations con.rm knowledge diffuses through ethnic networks, and manufacturing output in foreign countries increases with an elasticity of 0.1-0.3 to stronger scientific integration with the US frontier. To address reverse-causality concerns, reduced-form specifications exploit exogenous changes in US immigration quotas. Consistent with a model of sector reallocation, output growth in less developed economies is facilitated by employment gains, while more advanced economies experience sharper increases in labor productivity. The ethnic transfer mechanism is especially strong in high-tech industries and among Chinese economies. The findings suggest channels for transferring codified and tacit knowledge partly shape the effective technology frontiers of developing and emerging economies.Technology Transfer, Tacit Knowledge, Productivity, Patents, Innovation, Research and Development, Entrepreneurship, Immigration, Networks.

Growth and economic opportunities for women: literature review to inform the DFID-IDRC-Hewlett Foundation research program on women's economic empowerment, gender equality and growth in low income countries

This is a background paper for a new research programme on women's economic empowerment. It is a comprehensive literature review on the state of the field. Section 1 briefly discusses the global evidence on existing gender disparities in employment, wages, business opportunities, and the care economy. Sections 2, 3 and 4 describe the existing knowledge in the programme's central themes - constraints to women's economic empowerment, and the links between economic empowerment and growth - followed by research gaps and questions

Adaptive Agent Modeling as a Tool for Trade and Development Theory

This paper makes use of an adaptive agent framework to extend traditional models of comparative advantage in international trade, illustrating several cases which make theoretical room for industrial policy and the regulation of trade. Using an agent based implementation of the Hecksher-Ohlin trade model, the paper confirms Samuelson’s 2004 result demonstrating that the principle of comparative advantage does not ensure that technological progress in one country benefits its trading partners. It goes on to demonstrate that the presence of increasing returns leads to a situation with multiple equilibra, where free market trading policies can not be relied on to deliver an outcome which is efficient or equitable, with first movers in development enjoying permanent advantage over later developing nations. Finally, the paper examines the impact of relaxation of the Ricardian assumption of capital immobility on the principle of comparative advantage. It finds that the dynamics of factor trade are radically different from the dynamics of trade in goods and that factor mobility converts a regime of comparative advantage into a regime of absolute advantage, thus obviating the reassuring equity results which stem from comparative advantage.Agent-based modeling; comparative advantage; increasing returns; international trade

On the road to prosperity? The economic geography of China's national expressway network

Over the past two decades, China has embarked on an ambitious program of expressway network expansion. By facilitating market integration, this program aims both to promote efficiency at the national level and to contribute to the catch-up of lagging inland regions with prosperous Eastern ones. This paper evaluates the aggregate and spatial economic impacts of China's newly constructed National Expressway Network, focussing, in particular, on its short-run impacts. To achieve this aim, the authors adopt a counterfactual approach based on the estimation and simulation of a structural "new economic geography" model. Overall, they find that aggregate Chinese real income was approximately 6 percent higher than it would have been in 2007 had the expressway network not been built. Although there is considerable heterogeneity in the results, the authors do not find evidence of a significant reduction in disparities across prefectural level regions or of a reduction in urban-rural disparities. If anything, the expressway network appears to have reinforced existing patterns of spatial inequality, although, over time, these will likely be reduced by enhanced migration

Approaching a Triumphal Span: How Far Is China Towards its Lewisian Turning Point?

With the aid of an analytical framework of the Lewis model revised to reflect the experience of China, this paper examines the country?s dualistic economic development and its unique characteristics. The paper outlines the major effects of China?s growth as achieved during the course of economic reform and the opening-up of the country: the exploitation of the demographic dividend, the realization of comparative advantage, the improvement of total factor productivity, and participation in economic globalization. By predicting the long-term relationship between the labour force demand and supply, the paper reviews the approaching turning point in China?s economic development and examines a host of challenges facing the country in sustaining growth.demographic dividend, Lewisian turning point, economic development, China

Will the Explosive Growth of China Continue?

The role of China in the world economy is constantly growing. In particular we observe that it plays more and more important role in the support of theworld economic growth (as well as high prices of certain very important commodities). In the meantime the perspectives of the Chinese economy (as well as possible fates of the Chinese society) remain unclear, whereas respective forecasts look rather contradictory. That is why the search for new aspects and modes of analysis of possible development of China turns out to be rather important for the forecasting of global futures. This article employs a combination of scientific methods that imply (a) the analysis at the level of Chinese economic model; (b) the analysis at regional level (at this level the Chinese economic model is compared with the regional East Asian model); (c) the analysis at the global level that relies on the modified world-system approach that allows to answer the question whether China will replace the USA as the global leader. It is important that the analysis is conducted simultaneously in economic, social, demographic, and political dimensions. As regards the analysis of specific features of the Chinese model as an especial type of the East Asian model (that is based on the export orientation, capital & technology importation, as well as cheap labor force), we note as organic features of the Chinese model the totalitarian power of the Communist Party and the immenseness of resources. As regards special features of the Chinese model, we note (in addition to “cheap ecology” and cheap labor force) and emphasize that China has a multilevel (in a way unique) system of growth driving forces, where, as opposed to developed states, the dominant role belongs not to native private capital, but to state corporations, local authorities and foreign business. This explains the peculiarities of the Chinese investment (or rather overinvestment), which determines high growth rate up to a very significant degree. A unique feature of the Chinese model is the competition of provinces and territories for investments and high growth indicators. As regards perspectives of the global hegemony of China, we intend to demonstrate that, on the one hand, economic and political positions of China will strengthen in the forthcoming decades, but, on the other hand, China, assuming all possible future success, will be unable to take the USA position in the World System. We believe that in a direct connection with the development of globalization processes the hegemony cycle pattern is likely to come to its end, which will lead to the World System reconfiguration and the emergence of its new structure that will allow the World System to continue its further development without a hegemon. Finally, the article describes some possible scenarios of the development of China. We demonstrate that China could hardly avoid serious difficulties and critical situations (including those connected with demographic problems); however, there could be different scenarios of how China will deal with the forthcoming crisis. We also come to the conclusion that it would be better for China to achieve a slowdown to moderate growth rates (that would allow China to go through the forthcoming complex transition period with less losses) than to try to return at any cost to explosive growth rates attested in the 2000s