Introduction to open economy and globalization

The Institute of World Economy of Fudan University and the Research Center for Economy of Upper Reaches of the Yangtse River and the School of Economics of Chongqing Technology and Business University approached the Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy for publishing a special issue on the Open Economy and Globalization. With the support of Professor Leong Liew and the financial assistance of the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSF Project No. 71833003) and the National Social Science Foundation of China (NSSFC Project No. 19AJY016), an international workshop was held at Chongqing Technology and Business University on October 16, 2021. Due to the epidemic, a total of 12 selected papers from 49 submissions in response to our call-for-papers were presented and discussed at the workshop. A sub-set of the selected papers went through the normal review process and eight papers are accepted for publication. Three of the eight papers are closely related to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) launched by China in 2013. Paper 2 by Jing Wang and Xi Tian applies an augmented gravity model to 2012–2020 data and estimates the impacts of the BRI on China’s bilateral trade with her 190 trading partners. They find that the BRI significantly raised the extensive and intensive margins of China’s exports and imports, benefiting both trading parties. These effects varied with product categories and income levels of trading partners. Paper 3 is contributed by Yahui Chen, Charles van Marrewijk, Changsheng Xu, and Congmin Zuo, who analyze the impacts of the BRI on the economic and business environment of BRI participants. The authors discover that the impacts are positive, especially in terms of business starting and contract enforcing. Further, the positive effects are larger in low-income countries or economies with rising investments from China. In Paper 4, Kailei Wei, Suhan Li, and Chunxia Jiang explore the spatial heterogeneity and time-varying nature of FDI determinants by specially examining the BRI impact on FDI inflows. For this purpose, they apply long-term static model and short-term dynamic model to provincial panel data from China for the period of 1979–2018. Both positive and negative determinants of FDI inflows are identified and