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The focus of this paper is to provide an assessment of the impact of imports from China on Indian manufacturing and capture the multifarious dimensions of India–China bilateral trade flows. By examining the comparative disadvantage imports (RCA<1), the paper critically examines their significance on India's industry output and performance and underlines factors beyond trade competitiveness.

For examining the impact of India's manufacturing imports from China on industry performance, four stages of analysis is adopted. First, the imports with RCA <1 have been identified. For these, BRCA was also computed. Second, trends in industry performance associated with high imports from China. Third, for estimating the impact of imports on industry output, augmented production function was specified and estimated with imports from China as a potential determinant. And fourth, comparison of industry performance between India and China.

The impact of imports from China on industry output is positive and significant. A 1% increase/decrease in the share of China in world imports will result in output increasing by 0.31%. The rise in imports from China seems to be on account of non-availability of necessary intermediate and capital goods domestically, thereby making these imports critical and complementary for production. This negates the threat perception of imports from China.

The paper recognizes the need for understanding the firm heterogeneity in import decisions and R&D intensity of imports. Across industries, the drivers for firms' decisions to import are “learning by importing’ and “self-selection” (Camino-Magro et al., 2020). Also, another important dimension at the firm-level analysis is the elasticity of substitution between foreign and domestic inputs. If the elasticity of substitution is low then high import barriers will lead to reduction of domestic output. These firm-level issues are important for effective policy interventions.

One, the inward looking focus of the industry which is exhibited in low export intensity will not provide the necessary impetus to propel the manufacturing sector to a higher technology frontier and translate the productivity gains to export competitiveness. Two, unless the domestic manufacturing is propelled from the current low/medium technology to high technology products, the current policy thrust on “self-reliance” cannot be realized.

Analysis is based on manufacturing imports with RCA<1 from China thereby underlining factors beyond trade competitiveness not covered by RCA methodology. Complementing the quantitative analysis with economic policy developments in China and India and contrasting the same has provided insights into the real factors determining India–China bilateral trade.

This chapter analyses some internal territorial and economic conflicts in Spain among its autonomous communities. The Basque country has a very favourable tax system from 1878, which historically is stipulated in the Spanish constitution as a special case. This generates an asymmetry with respect to the other 18 Spanish communities including Catalonia, which would like to have a fiscal regime similar to that of the Basque country. After the Spanish state has built the fiscal balances for all autonomous communities, the Catalans argue that Spain steals them and they demand independence for Catalonia, which would affect the political and economic stability of the European Union. Specifically, this chapter attempts to describe a way to resolve territorial conflicts that have been exacerbated by the results of the fiscal balances in a context of fiscal decentralisation, since capital stock balances are not considered in the fiscal balances or in the inter-regional balance of payments. In this chapter, a production function approach, where the public capital production factor is separated into internal and imported capital stock, is used to calculate how the capital stock of the transportation infrastructure actually used can affect the labour productivity in each province or region. This study takes into account the direct effects of the capital stock of the road transport infrastructure of a region and the indirect effects that it receives from the use of infrastructures in other regions. Both types of public capital have been calculated by a network analysis, which allows us to calculate the stock of public capital effectively used in commercial activities, across 47 Spanish provinces during the period 1980–2007. The author estimates the spillover effects using spatial panel data techniques including spatial auto-correlation models with auto-regressive disturbances. In terms of labour productivity, the results indicate that the stock of imported capital is highly significant in all estimates while internal capital is not significant for all Spanish provinces, which classifies the Spanish provinces into users and used. This indicates that capital stock balances should be considered in some way into the inter-regional compensation fund to balance local fiscal balances, minimising some conflicts among regions.

The hypotheses that an increase in relative price elasticities is not associated with increased import substitution and that an increase in income and foreign exchange elasticities is not associated with a greater degree of “openness” of the Cameroon economy are investigated using cointegration and error‐correction modelling. Disaggregation of total imports into raw materials, consumer, intermediate and capital goods shows that long‐run relative price elasticities of import demand are greater than short‐run values, being above unity for raw materials and consumer goods; thus leading to rejection of the first hypothesis for these categories of imports. Imports are income‐elastic for capital and intermediate goods and foreign exchange inelastic for all categories of import, implying that the Cameroon economy has been less open to trade in general. Some policy implications of the results are provided.

The purpose of this paper is to identify capital flows due to trade misinvoicing in 30 African nations.

Data from 30 African nations were examined for deviations from average import and export prices as an indicator of capital flows This paper uses US customs data to document the amount of capital flows which may be hidden in commodity trade. Deviations from average prices (price filter matrix) within these commodity classes are used to identify abnormal prices and to produce conservative estimates of the amount of capital movement from 30 countries in Africa to the USA.

The results of this study demonstrate that, between 2000 and 2005, capital outflows from all 58 countries in Africa to the USA grew by more than 50 percent, through both low‐priced exports and high‐priced imports.

A clear understanding as to the true purpose of the overall capital movement is not easy to determine from the data. Approximately half of the countries (16 out of 30) utilized low‐priced exports as a means to move more money into the USA, while the other half (14 out of 30) used high‐priced exports to move the most money.

When trade misinvoicing is used as a tool to move capital in and out of a country or continent in order to evade taxes and/or customs duties, avoiding quotas, smuggling, and laundering illegally obtained money, or as a means of capital flight, the economic development of the given country is severely hindered. This movement of capital may be due to tax evasion, duty reduction, money laundering, capital flight, or other reasons beyond the scope of this paper.

The technique of using a price filter matrix can be of value to researchers and governments to identify capital flows due to trade misinvoicing.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of imported inputs on firms' productivity in selected South Asian economies, namely Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Furthermore, this study explores the complementarity between firms' capabilities and imported inputs in an augmented productivity framework.

A dataset comprising 7117 manufacturing firms of selected South Asian economies was taken from the World Bank for 2013 and 2014. The empirical analysis was based on stochastic frontier models, the ordinary least square method and instrumental variable estimation techniques.

The empirical results show that imported inputs have positive and significant effects on the firms' productivity in the selected countries. Moreover, the study findings demonstrate that firms' capabilities play a complementary role in expanding the firms' production frontier.

The study outcomes suggest that reducing tariffs on imported inputs will enhance the firms' productivity in the selected emerging economies. However, the study further finds that the potential gain of imported inputs is conditional on the firm's capabilities. It implies that firms operating in these countries can improve their performance by allocating more resources to capabilities, such as workers’ training, management and internal R&D effort.

The existing literature on the subject is sceptical about the positive impact of imported inputs on firms' productivity in the case of developing countries. In this regard, the shortage of skilled labour and firms' capabilities are compelling rationales that need to be explored. Thus, the potential contribution of the study lies in explaining the moderating role of firm's capabilities operating in the selected emerging economies in the nexus of imported inputs and productivity.

This study investigates the nature of the substitutability relationships among capital, labor, and imported inputs in the context of a production function for Spain, with estimates obtained from an aggregate cost function. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that all of the inputs are substitutes for one another. The findings with respect to domestic inputs and imports are particularly important as the internationalization of the Spanish economy continues since, in the short run and ceteris paribus, further removal of import restrictions may have a negative impact on the demand for domestic factors. The estimates obtained here are also consistent with the hypotheses that: a decrease in the price of imports will have a proportionately larger impact on the price of domestically‐produced investment goods than on consumption goods; and second, that the elasticity of demand for each input with respect to consumption goods production is considerably higher than for investment goods production.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of the driving forces and structural changes of China as a market provider for Korea. This paper gives the answers for the following questions: How do China’s final demands trigger the growth of its imports from Korea? And what’s the impact of China’s final demands on the import in different industries?

Based on the Multi-Regional Input-Output model and World Input-Output Table database, this paper constructs the non-competitive imports input-output (IO) table of China to Korea. According to this table, we can calculate the induced imports coefficient and comprehensive induced import coefficients of China’s four final demands for imports from Korea in the 56 industries in China.

Among the four driving forces, the strongest one is changes in inventories and valuables. The impact of final consumption expenditure and fixed capital formation is much lower than that of changes in inventories and valuables, but they have a broader impact for the 56 industries. This paper finds out the China’s import induction of the final demands to Korea peaked in 2005 and 2010 and decreased greatly in 2014, so the position of China as market provider for Korea will no longer rise substantially, contrarily it will be in a steady state.

First, this paper constructs the non-competitive IO table to analyze the market provider issues between two countries and provides practical ways and methods for studies on the issues of imports and market provider. Second, this paper investigates the different roles of four final demands on driving force of China as market provider for Korea and the structural changes of China as a market provider for Korea among 56 industries from 2000 to 2014.

China’s unprecedented emergence as an economic and political power has created a new geopolitical economy for semi-industrialised and developing economies in Southeast Asia. This paper examines China’s trade relationships with Thailand and Indonesia using the concepts of uneven and combined development (UCD) and unequal exchange. The mass of surplus value obtained through China’s trade with the developed economies has flowed into the considerable expansion in China’s imports from developing countries since 2000. China has maintained a consistent trade deficit with the latter. While the developing countries concerned have benefitted from this set of relationships, the extent to which they have done so has been determined by national strategies. In countries like Thailand – where manufacturing capital and a significant working class has emerged – exports expanded on the basis of mutually advantageous technologically and skills intensive goods. These are produced with a similar organic composition of capital as in China. The result has been a further consolidation of the hegemony of manufacturing capital. Indonesia, however, has a political system and economy long dominated by resource exploitation linked fractions of capital. The result has been a surge in primary goods exports. The current commodity price cycle has meant these goods exchange at prices above their value. The current looming price correction, however, may have negative repercussions. In the meantime, the concentration in raw materials exports is helping to prevent the emergence of a circuit of productive capital in manufacturing. The evidence from these contrasting cases suggests that the degree to which developing economies can benefit from China’s own historically unparalleled combined development remains highly contingent on the strength of the combined development possibilities and efforts within these other national social formations. Above all, there is the degree to which manufacturing sectors of capital can obtain hegemony.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors of technology diffusion in Saudi Arabia. It is a relevant study for Saudi Arabia, which has embarked on high gears of economic modernization that is supposed to be driven by technology and knowledge. Thus, an up-to-date research on the factors of technology diffusion in the country is expected to be of high-valued contribution.

It employs co-integration method to analyse the long run relations between the technology diffusion and its determinants.

The study finds that the international trade, particularly the oil sector trade, of the Saudi Arabia appears to play no relevant role in the international technology transfer for Saudi Arabia. The study confirms that technology is an endogenous variable in the presence of human capital; and that the higher levels of educational attainments are found to significantly improve factor productivity. The foreign direct investment (FDI) stock is confirmed to be a consistent and important factor in the process of technology diffusion. The capital goods imports and the domestic R&D expenditure are found to be negatively associated with the technology diffusion.

The machine and transport equipment imports are used by the study as a measure of capital goods imports, and thus a better measure is needed in a further research. Similarly, the limited data on the domestic R&D expenditure has forced the author to rely on estimates and own calculations. Thus, these data limitations could not allow us to have better understanding of the impacts of capital goods imports and domestic R&D on the technology diffusion.

Human capital and FDIs are the key drivers the Saudi authorities should consider for transferring and diffusing technology in the country and expanding non-oil sources of economic growth.

This paper is a first of its kind for the case of Saudi Arabia to analyze the determinants of technology diffusion and investigate the role of the its oil sector trade in the technology diffusion. The oil sector trade is found insignificant in the international technology diffusion process; thus the authorities should refocus the oil sector trade towards technology localization and adoption to increase integrative by-product industries in the country.

There has been a period of slow but a steady increase in wage inequality in the Indian manufacturing sector since the mid‐1980s, which has gone hand‐in‐hand with an increase in the relative employment of skilled workers across all industries in the same period. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the co‐movement of relative employment and wages of skilled workers can be attributed to the changes in trade policy that has occurred in the Indian economy since the mid‐1980s.

The two dominant theoretical perspectives on why trade reforms lay lead to wage inequality are Heckscher–Ohlin theory and trade‐induced skill‐biased technological change (SBTC). The paper evaluates the applicability of these theoretical perspectives to the Indian case using disaggregated industry data from Annual Survey of Industries from 1973 to 1997.

Evidence was found of the validity of both the two dominant theoretical perspectives on wage inequality to explain the co‐movement in wage inequality and relative skill intensity in Indian manufacturing, with both variables increasing in the 1990s. Trade‐induced technological progress has led to an increase in relative skill intensity and wage inequality within industries. At the same time, the decline in protection that seems to have occurred more in unskilled labour‐intensive industries has led to a relative fall in the economy‐wide return to unskilled labour relative to skilled labour. Therefore, trade reforms have led to a widening of wage gap between skilled and unskilled workers, and an increase in relative skill intensity in Indian manufacturing.

The paper contributes to support of the trade‐induced SBTC hypothesis which may provide a consistent explanation of why many countries in the south experienced increases in wage inequality with the onset of trade liberalisation.