Vertical intra-industry trade between China and OECD countries

This paper examines the issue of intra-industry trade in a transition economy. We address the question of whether the market-opening reforms in China have resulted in an increasing exchange of similar products, or whether foreign trade is still playing the role of filling the gap of products not produced within the country. We find that the proportion of intra-industry trade in China-OECD trade has increased from 12 per cent of total manufacturing trade in 1980 to over 20 per cent in 1992. The highest shares of intra-industry trade with China are reported for Japan and the United Kingdom. Due to the large differences between China and the OECD countries in terms of factor endowments, we expect intra-industry trade to be of the vertical nature, i.e., two-way trade in varieties of a product characterised by different qualities. Empirical evidence indeed shows that the majority of the intra-industry trade between China and the OECD is of the vertical nature; China exports lower quality ... Ce document traite des echanges au sein d’une meme branche industrielle dans une economie en transition : les reformes d’ouverture sur le marche en Chine ontelles stimule les echanges de produits equivalents ou bien ont-elles permis d’importer des biens non produits dans le pays ? Les resultats montrent que le commerce intrabranche entre la Chine et les pays de l’OCDE est passe de 12 pour cent des echanges totaux de produits manufactures en 1980 a plus de 20 pour cent en 1992, le Japon et le Royaume Uni en assurant la plus grande part. Du fait des grandes differences en termes de dotation en facteurs entre la Chine et les pays de l’OCDE, on peut faire l’hypothese d’une structure verticale du commerce intra-branche, c’est-a-dire d’importations et exportations simultanees d’un meme produit mais de qualite differente. De fait, l’observation empirique montre que la Chine exporte principalement des produits de basse qualite en echange de produits de plus grande qualite en provenance des ...

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