Which Sectors Really Matter for a Resilient Chinese Economy? A Structural Decomposition Analysis

Xin Mai, Roger C. K. Chan and Chaoqun Zhan
Additional contact information
Xin Mai: School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China
Roger C. K. Chan: Department of Urban Planning and Design, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Chaoqun Zhan: Lingnan College, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 22, 1-17

Abstract: This study explores the structural effect of economic resilience with a case of China by examining the extent to which the major economic sectors contribute to the relative resilience of China’s overall economy. By applying a time series analysis, we use the Hodrick–Prescott filter to delineate China’s national economy on a quarterly basis and reveal different performances in responding to two recent economic crises in 1997 and 2008. Using quarterly data pertaining to eight economic sectors (including agriculture, industry, and major service sectors) and the national GDP from 1993Q1 to 2017Q2, we examine their effects on China’s economic resilience by simulating the responses of the national economy to a unit shock from each sector. Results show that the construction, real estate, and financial services have the greatest potential to “disturb” the national economy whereas the industrial sector has the greatest potential to “stabilize” it. The findings correspond with the understanding that extensive infrastructure development and the real estate boom have driven China’s rapid urban development and created economic prosperity, whereas the sectoral decomposition of economic resilience compels a critical reflection on the risks of this growth model.

Keywords: economic resilience; sectoral effect; time-series analysis; urbanization; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/22/6333/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/22/6333/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:22:p:6333-:d:285894

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().