From 0 to 60 without a Hitch? Regulated Efficiency, WTO Accession, and the Motor Vehicle Sector in China

Joseph Francois and Dean Spinanger

No 331150, Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project

Abstract: With China's automobile market rapidly expanding into the fourth largest in the world, the question arises about how it will come to grips with the massive restructuring problems it is facing. This paper is concerned with the interaction of regulated efficiency and WTO accession, and its impact on China’s motor vehicle sector. The approach is general equilibrium using GTAP5 aggregated to 23 sectors and 25 regions. Regulatory reform and internal restructuring are seen as being critical to the impact on the sector. Such a restructuring is represented here by a cost reduction following from consolidation and rationalization. This involves movement of costs toward global norms. Without such restructuring, WTO accession would mean that imports of final vehicles would surge, though imports of parts could well fall as production moves offshore. However, with restructuring, it could be assumed that the final assembly industry can be made competitive by world standards. What hitches might be involved or rather how smooth will the ride be to 60mph? And will the ride get bumpy for other production locations?

Keywords: Production Economics; Industrial Organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/331150/files/1392.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ags:pugtwp:331150

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().