Explore the vast range of titles available.

\"Since 2012, industrial overcapacity has become an increasingly serious problem in China, against the backdrop of domestic economic slowdown and continued downturn in international markets. Overcapacity is widespread in the traditional manufacturing sector, particularly in iron and steel, cement, electrolytic aluminium, flat glass, and ship-building industries. It is also grave in emerging industries such as polysilicon, solar cells, and wind power equipment. This book provides an overview on the overcapacity problem facing China and examines the main characteristics of overcapacity in some important industries. The book identifies two types of overcapacity: one is excess capacity that results from natural supply-demand dynamics or cyclical economic fluctuations under a relatively sound market system; the other is overcapacity caused by the overinvestment of enterprises under a flawed economic system. It probes into how overcapacity is caused and finds two contributors -- change of growth model and institutional flaws. It explores to establish a long-term mechanism for solving the problem. The book concludes that China should establish a long-term mechanism to prevent and resolve overcapacity, and to establish healthy relationship between the market and the government\"-- Provided by publisher.

Many developing economies adopt industrial policies favoring selected sectors. Is there an economic logic to this type of intervention? I analyze industrial policy when economic sectors form a production network via input-output linkages. Market imperfections generate distortionary effects that compound through backward demand linkages, causing upstream sectors to become the sink for imperfections and have the greatest size distortions. My key finding is that the distortion in sectoral size is a sufficient statistic for the social value of promoting that sector; thus, there is an incentive for a well-meaning government to subsidize upstream sectors. Furthermore, sectoral interventions’ aggregate effects can be simply summarized, to first order, by the cross-sector covariance between my sufficient statistic and subsidy spending. My sufficient statistic predicts sectoral policies in South Korea in the 1970s and modern-day China, suggesting that sectoral interventions might have generated positive aggregate effects in these economies.

China initiated a major reform for capital taxation in 2004. Completed in 2009, it introduced permanent tax incentives for firms’ investment in fixed assets. We explore a unique firm-level dataset from years 2005–2012 and utilize a quasi-experimental design to test the impacts of the reform on firms’ investment and productivity. We find that, on average, the reform raised investment and productivity of the treated firms relative to the control firms by 38.4 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively. We also show that the positive effects tend to be strengthened for firms with financial constraints.

We examine the impact of Chinese import competition on broad measures of technical change—patenting, IT, and TFP—using new panel data across twelve European countries from 1996 to 2007. In particular, we establish that the absolute volume of innovation increases within the firms most affected by Chinese imports in their output markets. We correct for endogeneity using the removal of product-specific quotas following China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. Chinese import competition led to increased technical change within firms and reallocated employment between firms towards more technologically advanced firms. These within and between effects were about equal in magnitude, and account for 14% of European technology upgrading over 2000-7 (and even more when we allow for offshoring to China). Rising Chinese import competition also led to falls in employment and the share of unskilled workers. In contrast to low-wage nations like China, developed countries had no significant effect on innovation.

The issue of overcapacity has become an unavoidable challenge in the rapid development of nations, constraining economic progress, particularly within industries like steel, coal, and cement. This study, using the example of the Chinese steel industry in the context of supply-side structural reform, employs data envelopment analysis (DEA) models to measure capacity utilization, and ordinary least squares (OLS) models to investigate the impact of capacity reduction policies on the steel industry’s capacity utilization pathways. The research findings indicate that capacity reduction policies have a significantly positive impact on the capacity utilization in the steel industry. They enhance capacity utilization through four pathways: “equipment optimization and upgrade”, “enterprise mergers and restructuring”, “technology innovation-driven”, and “environmental protection regulations”. Among these, “technology innovation-driven” and “environmental protection regulations” play predominant roles, while the effect of “international market expansion” on increasing capacity utilization in the steel industry is not significant. To ensure the sustained effectiveness of capacity reduction policies, the nation should continue to strengthen the “technology innovation-driven” and “environmental protection regulations” pathways. Additionally, it should activate the “national market expansion” pathway, fully exploring the potential for international cooperation to achieve improved capacity utilization in the steel industry.

We study the effect of place-based industrial policy on economic development, focusing on the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in China. We use data from a panel of Chinese (prefecture-level) cities from 1988 to 2010. Our difference-in-difference estimation exploits the variation in the establishment of SEZ across time and space. We find that the establishment of a state-level SEZ is associated with an increase in the level of GDP of about 20%. This finding is confirmed with alternative specifications and in a sub-sample of inland provinces, where the selection of cities to host the zones was based on administrative criteria. The main channel is a positive effect on physical capital accumulation, although SEZ also have a positive effect on total factor productivity and human capital investments. We also investigate whether there are spillover effects of SEZ on neighboring regions or cities further away. We find positive and often significant spillover effects.

While the performance implications of university-industry collaboration (UIC) have been the subject of extensive research, no study thus far has investigated the potential influence of absorptive capacity and innovation competencies on the relationship between UIC and product innovation performance. Based on a sample of 2061 German companies from two waves of the German Community Innovation Survey and using moderated multiple regression, this study examines these moderating effects and provides the following findings: (1) absorptive capacity in terms of internal R&D negatively moderates the relationship between UIC and incremental innovation performance and has no effect on the relationship between UIC and radical innovation performance; (2) absorptive capacity related to employee know-how has no moderating effect on the relationship between UIC and incremental innovation performance but positively moderates the relationship between UIC and radical innovation performance; and (3) innovation competencies exert no moderating effect on the relationship between UIC and incremental innovation performance but have a predominantly positive moderating effect on the relationship between UIC and radical innovation performance. In summary, our study provides relevant insights on the dynamics governing UIC relationships and provides evidence for potential negative effects of absorptive capacity in the context of collaborative R&D (substitution effect). Providing an in-depth analysis of UIC, this study offers insights for research in this field by explaining the variance in the outcomes of UIC. Moreover, our findings have the potential to aid practitioners (e.g., innovation managers, researchers, and governing and funding bodies) in their decisions concerning their involvement in UIC.

Evaluation of tourism competitiveness is useful for measuring the level of regional tourism development. It is of great importance to understand the advantages and disadvantages of tourism development correctly and formulate corresponding development strategies. To investigate tourism competitiveness, this paper established an evaluation index system, including tourism development competitiveness, tourism resource competitiveness, and tourism-support competitiveness, for 14 prefectures and cities in Xinjiang in China. The characteristics and laws of spatial differentiation were analyzed. Factor analysis was applied to examine the spatial differentiation of regional tourism competitiveness. The results showed an obvious spatial differentiation in tourism competitiveness among the 14 prefectures and cities. In terms of development competitiveness, Yili and Urumqi constituted the spatial center, followed by Changji, Altay, and Ba Prefecture. As the provincial capital, Urumqi has political, economic, cultural, transportation, and geographic advantages, but its competitiveness is not prominent in terms of monopoly and efficiency. In terms of resource competitiveness, Yili is the core attraction, while Urumqi, Kashgar, Altay, and Ba Prefecture are dominant attractions. With respect to supporting competitiveness, Bo Prefecture has high value, followed by Urumqi City and Aksu. Hetian and Ke Prefecture have the lowest values. The comprehensive competitiveness of tourism is centered on Yili. Urumqi and Bo Prefecture are subcenters, and Changji, Altay, Ba Prefecture, Aksu, and Kashgar are characterized as multi-polar competition areas. Using the KMO and Bartlett’s sphericity tests, the cumulative contribution variance of the eigenvalues of the eight factors extracted by the maximum variance rotation method was found to be 92.714%. Socio-economic conditions, tourism resources, infrastructure construction, regional cultural influence, ecological environment carrying capacity, tertiary industry development, tourism service level, and living security system are the main driving factors affecting the spatial differentiation of tourism competitiveness in Xinjiang. Analyzing the spatial evolution characteristics and the driving factors of the regional tourism competitiveness in Xinjiang, this paper seeks to promote the optimal allocation of tourism production factors in the macro regional system, and provide theoretical guidance and an empirical basis for the comprehensive and harmonic development of regional tourism.

To objectively analyze the effect of the water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) on sustainable regional development, a case study of Heilongjiang Province, China, is conducted. With a focus on the coordinated development of the water resources system, 16 indices are selected to establish an index-based WRCC evaluation system. In addition, based on the index values, initial values are obtained using a fuzzy combined weighting method. The WRCC evaluation levels are objectively generated using cloud model, and the temporal and spatial evolution of the WRCC in the study area is analyzed. The obstacle degree is used to analyze quantitatively the restraint relationship of each index to the carrying capacity. The present study classifies the WRCC into five evaluation levels: level I ([0.01, 0.21]), level II ([0.21, 0.37]), level III ([0.37, 0.47]), level IV ([0.47, 0.63]), and level V ([0.63, 0.82]). When determining the WRCC of each of the 13 observation points, the trend is consistent with both social and economic development, indicating that the evaluation criteria have a high degree of credibility. The main influencing factors of the WRCC also change, between 1999 and 2007, the irrigation coverage, amount of water resources per unit area, and gross domestic product per capita were the main factors, between 2008 and 2014, the agricultural water pollution index, population density, and percentage of industrial wastewater discharge compliant with consent conditions were the main factors. In addition, between 1999 and 2014, the ecological environment gradually became the main subsystem that limits the WRCC.

This paper examines why credit constraints for domestic and exporting firms arise in a setting where banks do not observe firms' productivities. To maintain incentive compatibility, banks lend below the amount that firms need for optimal production. The longer time needed for export shipments induces a tighter credit constraint on exporters than on purely domestic firms. In our application to Chinese firms, we find that the credit constraint is more stringent as a firm's export share grows, as the time to ship for exports is lengthened, and as there is greater dispersion of firms' productivities, reflecting more incomplete information.