Do Imported Commodities Cause Inflation in China? An Armington Substitution Elasticity Analysis

Chongyu Wu, Jiantao Zhou, Hui Li, Zhongyi Liu and Xinyi Cai

Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 2017, vol. 53, issue 2, 400-415

Abstract: Based on the perspective of Armington substitution elasticity, this article researches the price transmission effect of China’s imported commodities. First, this article focuses on the theory of Armington substitution elasticity of nonhomogeneous products and then estimates the overall level of Armington substitution elasticity of China’s imported commodities. Second, this article studies the fluctuation trend in Armington substitution elasticity’s estimations using a state space model. The results of this article indicate that the value of Armington substitution elasticity of China’s imported commodities is negative and decreased significantly after the international financial crisis, which means that the relationship between China’s imported commodities and domestic products is complementary rather than substitutional. Moreover, this article finds evidence of the price transmission effect in China’s imported commodities. However, this effect is not obvious and weakened after the international financial crisis. Finally, we conclude that, if it wishes to prevent serious inflationary problems in China, the Chinese government should pay attention to the price of domestic products instead of focusing on the hazards of imported inflation (deflation).

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1540496X.2016.1265502 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:mes:emfitr:v:53:y:2017:i:2:p:400-415

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MREE20

DOI: 10.1080/1540496X.2016.1265502

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Emerging Markets Finance and Trade from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().