Exports, Technical Progress and Productivity Growth in Chinese Manufacturing Industries

Theories suggesting either static or dynamic productivity gains derived from exports often assume the prior existence of a perfect market. In the presence of market failure, however, the competition effect and the resource reallocation effect of exports on productive efficiency may be greatly reduced; and there may actually be disincentives for innovation. This paper analyses the impact of exports on total factor productivity (TFP) growth in a transition economy using a panel of Chinese manufacturing industries over the period 1990-1997. TFP growth is estimated by employing a non-parametric approach and is decomposed into technical progress and efficiency change. We have not found evidence suggesting significant productivity gains at the industry level resulting from exports. Findings of the current study suggest that, for exports to generate significant positive effect on TFP growth, a well?developed domestic market and a neutral, outward-oriented policy are necessary.exports, industrial efficiency, technical progress, productivity

Exports, FDI, Growth Of Small Rural Enterprises And Employment In China

This paper analyses the growth of employment in China during the post reform period. It argues that the Chinese experience with export-led growth provides an excellent example of the phenomenon of a vent for surplus productive capacity provided by exports, identified by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations and elaborated by Hla Myint. The paper extends the Smith-Myint model of ‘vent-for-surplus’ productive capacity to ‘vent-for-surplus’ resources by allowing foreign investment inflows. The ‘vent-for-surplus’ effect of exports on employment growth is examined in a dynamic labour demand framework for a panel of township and village enterprises (TVEs) in China.exports, foreign direct investment, small and medium-enterprises, employment

International and Intra-national Technology Spillovers and Technology Development Paths in Developing Countries: The Case of China

This paper analyses the paths of technology development among regions with heterogeneous economic and technological characteristics, focusing on the case of China. It finds that intra-national technology transfer, that is, the technology transfer from technologically advanced provinces to less advanced ones, is more important than that taking place through FDI in the backward regions. In technologically advanced areas, learning by doing, indigenous R&D and technology transfer from FDI all play a significant role in technical progress. The relationship between the strength of interprovincial technology transfer and technological distance is U-shaped, with the technology threshold falling outside the upper bound of technology distance. This suggests that technology transfer takes place more effectively when technological distance is small. The paper finds that learning by doing and R&D are important internal routes to technical progress. R&D plays a key role in the assimilation of foreign technologies, whereas learning by doing is relevant for the absorption of interprovincial technology transfers.FDI, technology spillovers, technology threshold

Management characteristics, collaboration and innovative efficiency: evidence from UK survey data

This paper explores the impact of management characteristics and patterns of collaboration on a firmÕs innovation performance in transforming innovation resources into commercially successful outputs. These questions are investigated using a recent firm level survey database for 465 innovative British small and medium enterprises (SMEs) over the years 1998-2001. Both Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) are employed to benchmark a firmÕs innovative efficiency against best practice. Quality and the variety of innovations are taken into account by combining Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with DEA. We find evidence suggesting that the innovative efficiency of SMEs is significantly affected by their management characteristics and collaboration behaviour. Collaboration, organisational flexibility, formality in management systems and incentive schemes are found to contribute significantly to a firmÕs innovative efficiency. Managerial share-ownership also shows some positive effect. The importance of these effects, however, varies across different sectors. WE find that innovative efficiency in high-tech SMEs is significantly enhanced by collaboration, formal management structure and training; and that in medium- and low-tech SMEs is significantly associated with managerial ownership, incentive schemes and organisational flexibility.management characteristics, collaboration, innovative efficiency

The impact of China's exports on global manufactures prices

This paper analyses the impact of China's exports on the prices of exports from other countries using disaggregated import data in the US, EU and Japan over the 1989-2006 period. Findings from this study suggest that China's exports have affected not just those countries whose competitiveness is largely based on low wages but all country groups in certain products sectors, destination markets and during different time periods. The middle income countries are the most affected by China's export expansion through price competition particularly after the late 1990s as a consequence of China's market expansion, its WTO entry and exchange rate variation. The influence on high-income countries is only in low-technology product sectors and appears to lose its significance in the post-1997 period. The impact on low-income countries is only significant in the medium- and high-tech sectors mostly in the pre-1997 period and this effect weakened over time

International and intra-national technology spillovers and technology development paths in developing countries: The case of China

This paper analyses the paths of technology development among regions with heterogeneous economic and technological characteristics, focusing on the case of China. It finds that intra-national technology transfer, that is, the technology transfer from technologically advanced provinces to less advanced ones, is more important than that taking place through FDI in the backward regions. In technologically advanced areas, learning by doing, indigenous R&D and technology transfer from FDI all play a significant role in technical progress. The relationship between the strength of interprovincial technology transfer and technological distance is U-shaped, with the technology threshold falling outside the upper bound of technology distance. This suggests that technology transfer takes place more effectively when technological distance is small. The paper finds that learning by doing and R&D are important internal routes to technical progress. R&D plays a key role in the assimilation of foreign technologies, whereas learning by doing is relevant for the absorption of interprovincial technology transfers

Implicit sequence learning of chunking and abstract structures

The current study investigated whether people can simultaneously acquire knowledge about concrete chunks and abstract structures in implicit sequence learning; and whether the degree of abstraction determines the conscious status of the acquired knowledge. We adopted three types of stimuli in a serial reaction time task in three experiments. The RT results indicated that people could simultaneously acquire knowledge about concrete chunks and abstract structures of the temporal sequence. Generation performance revealed that ability to control was mainly based on abstract structures rather than concrete chunks. Moreover, ability to control was not generally accompanied with awareness of knowing or knowledge, as measured by confidence ratings and attribution tests, confirming that people could control the use of unconscious knowledge of abstract structures. The results present a challenge to computational models and theories of implicit learning

Electrophysiological Evidence Reveals Differences between the Recognition of Microexpressions and Macroexpressions

Microexpressions are fleeting facial expressions that are important for judging people's true emotions. Little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying the recognition of microexpressions (with duration of less than 200 ms) and macroexpressions (with duration of greater than 200 ms). We used an affective priming paradigm in which a picture of a facial expression is the prime and an emotional word is the target, and electroencephalogram (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine neural activities associated with recognizing microexpressions and macroexpressions. The results showed that there were significant main effects of duration and valence for N170/vertex positive potential. The main effect of congruence for N400 is also significant. Further, sLORETA showed that the brain regions responsible for these significant differences included the inferior temporal gyrus and widespread regions of the frontal lobe. Furthermore, the results suggested that the left hemisphere was more involved than the right hemisphere in processing a microexpression. The main effect of duration for the event-related spectral perturbation (ERSP) was significant, and the theta oscillations (4 to 8 Hz) increased in recognizing expressions with a duration of 40 ms compared with 300 ms. Thus, there are different EEG/ERPs neural mechanisms for recognizing microexpressions compared to recognizing macroexpressions

The role of edge-based and surface-based information in natural scene categorization: evidence from behavior and event-related potentials

A fundamental question in vision research is whether visual recognition is determined by edge-based information (e.g., edge, line, and conjunction) or surface-based information (e.g., color, brightness, and texture). To investigate this question, we manipulated the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the scene and the mask in a backward masking task of natural scene categorization. The behavioral results showed that correct classification was higher for line-drawings than for color photographs when the SOA was 13ms, but lower when the SOA was longer. The ERP results revealed that most latencies of early components were shorter for the line-drawings than for the color photographs, and the latencies gradually increased with the SOA for the color photographs but not for the line-drawings. The results provide new evidence that edge-based information is the primary determinant of natural scene categorization, receiving priority processing; by contrast, surface information takes longer to facilitate natural scene categorization