Trade and Environment: Evidence from China's Manufacturing Sector

This paper uses the manufacturing sector in China to consider whether globalization of the Chinese economy over the past two decades has contributed to the decline in environmental conditions. The results show that China's experience with the trade liberalization-environment nexus is consistent with international evidence. On one hand, trade liberalization has had various positive effects on the environment. Firstly, it promoted specialization in areas of comparative advantage, which, in general, included industries that contributed less to environmental degradation. Secondly, it allowed China to access and adopt the best international practices in pollution abatement technology. Thirdly, it enabled China to transfer environmental costs to other countries by importing intermediate products whose production contributed to environmental degradation. On the other hand, these positive effects were overwhelmed by a negative scale effect, which was the result of a huge increase in the demand for Chinese exports. The paper concludes that if China is to prevent pollution from reaching a critical threshold, environmental regulations need to be tightened

Environmental Impact of China's Accession to WTO in the Manufacturing Sector

This paper estimates the immediate impact of China's accession to WTO on water, air and soil pollution in the Chinese manufacturing sector. The pollution effects of WTO accession are decomposed into three categories: composition, technical and scale effects. The results suggest that the immediate environmental impact of China's WTO accession will be largely positive. The dismantling of import barriers on China's highly protected heavy industries and the phasing out of MFA enable China to specialize according to its comparative advantage. Its resources will be relocated from capital, land, energy and other natural resources intensive heavy industries and channeled into labor-intensive light industries. As the latter industries are cleaner than the former, the compositional change in Chinese manufactured output would reduce Chinese aggregate pollution level by 4 per cent. At the same time, China 's WTO accession enable China to gain increased access and induces it to adopt cleaner production technology. This would lead to significant drop in the pollution intensity of its manufacturing sector. Though the expansion of the Chinese manufactured sector as a result of China's accession to WTO is likely to increase the emission of all three pollutants, this negative scale effect is not large enough to offset the large environmental gains from increased specialization in light industries and increased access to best international practice in pollution abatement technology. As a result, China is expected to experience a fall in air, soil and aggregate pollution levels after its entry into WTO. However, water pollution is expected to rise

Trade and Environment: Evidence from China's Manufacturing Sector

This paper uses the manufacturing sector in China to consider whether globalization of the Chinese economy over the past two decades has contributed to the decline in environmental conditions. The results show that China's experience with the trade liberalization-environment nexus is consistent with international evidence. On one hand, trade liberalization has had various positive effects on the environment. Firstly, it promoted specialization in areas of comparative advantage, which, in general, included industries that contributed less to environmental degradation. Secondly, it allowed China to access and adopt the best international practices in pollution abatement technology. Thirdly, it enabled China to transfer environmental costs to other countries by importing intermediate products whose production contributed to environmental degradation. On the other hand, these positive effects were overwhelmed by a negative scale effect, which was the result of a huge increase in the demand for Chinese exports. The paper concludes that if China is to prevent pollution from reaching a critical threshold, environmental regulations need to be tightened

Environmental Impact of China's Accession to WTO in the Manufacturing Sector

This paper estimates the immediate impact of China's accession to WTO on water, air and soil pollution in the Chinese manufacturing sector. The pollution effects of WTO accession are decomposed into three categories: composition, technical and scale effects. The results suggest that the immediate environmental impact of China's WTO accession will be largely positive. The dismantling of import barriers on China's highly protected heavy industries and the phasing out of MFA enable China to specialize according to its comparative advantage. Its resources will be relocated from capital, land, energy and other natural resources intensive heavy industries and channeled into labor-intensive light industries. As the latter industries are cleaner than the former, the compositional change in Chinese manufactured output would reduce Chinese aggregate pollution level by 4 per cent. At the same time, China 's WTO accession enable China to gain increased access and induces it to adopt cleaner production technology. This would lead to significant drop in the pollution intensity of its manufacturing sector. Though the expansion of the Chinese manufactured sector as a result of China's accession to WTO is likely to increase the emission of all three pollutants, this negative scale effect is not large enough to offset the large environmental gains from increased specialization in light industries and increased access to best international practice in pollution abatement technology. As a result, China is expected to experience a fall in air, soil and aggregate pollution levels after its entry into WTO. However, water pollution is expected to rise.WTO, China, trade liberalization, Industrial Organization, International Relations/Trade,

Trade and Environment: Evidence from China's Manufacturing Sector

This paper uses the manufacturing sector in China to consider whether globalization of the Chinese economy over the past two decades has contributed to the decline in environmental conditions. The results show that China's experience with the trade liberalization-environment nexus is consistent with international evidence. On one hand, trade liberalization has had various positive effects on the environment. Firstly, it promoted specialization in areas of comparative advantage, which, in general, included industries that contributed less to environmental degradation. Secondly, it allowed China to access and adopt the best international practices in pollution abatement technology. Thirdly, it enabled China to transfer environmental costs to other countries by importing intermediate products whose production contributed to environmental degradation. On the other hand, these positive effects were overwhelmed by a negative scale effect, which was the result of a huge increase in the demand for Chinese exports. The paper concludes that if China is to prevent pollution from reaching a critical threshold, environmental regulations need to be tightened.trade liberalization, China, manufacturing, Environmental Economics and Policy,

The Expansion of Japanese Food Processors in the Asia-Pacific Region

Japanese food processors have been faced with internal and external squeezes in recent years. Internally, the industry is faced with an overall demand ceiling due to Engel's law and a rapidly changing demand structure due to the "westernisation" of the Japanese consumers' taste. Externally, the industry is faced with increased import competition as a result of the liberalisation of the Japanese import market for agricultural and processed food products. Under these pressures, performance of the Japanese food processors in terms of productivity and profitability, is found to be below average, compared with Japanese manufacturing as a whole. Associated with the deteriorating productivity and profitability performance, Japanese food processors have stepped up their foreign direct investment (FDI) activities in the Asia-Pacific region. This development provides both challenge and opportunities for Australian producers and food processors. As most of the Japanese FDIs are either domestic market or export oriented, they are likely to pose serious competition for Australian firms. At the same time, through joint ventures with Japanese firms, the Australian food processors may acquire the inside knowledge of the Asian market which would enable them to capitalise on the enormous opportunities in the Asian food market