Interprovincial Trade In China Research Articles

Officials’ hometown connections and interprovincial trade in China: based on the perspective of hometown favoritism

ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of officials’ hometown connections on interprovincial trade in China, emphasising local officials’ favouritism towards their hometowns. Utilising the detailed curriculum vitae of provincial leaders along with railway trade data for province pairs, the paper finds that provincial governors significantly enhance bilateral trade with their hometowns by 14.0%. Further analysis reveals that governors augment final goods imports by 19.4% and raw resources exports by 17% with their hometowns, while exhibiting a less significant influence on final goods exports and raw resources imports. These findings suggest that local leaders may allocate portions of monopoly markets and raw resources to favour their hometowns. Moreover, differences in industrial structures appear to amplify the impact of hometown connections, while officials’ promotion pressures may mitigate this effect. This study contributes new insights into the spillover effects of hometown connections, thus combining the existing literature on hometown favouritism and local protectionism.

Interregional Flows of Embodied Carbon Storage Associated with Land-Use Change in China

With the continuous expansion of regional trade, interregional teleconnections have an increasingly pronounced impact on the changes in carbon storage caused by land use in China. Current research in this area remains remarkably limited, however. This study employs land-use data, carbon density data, and a multiregional input–output model to precisely quantify the embodied flow and spatial patterns of land-use carbon storage in China. We found that the carbon storage embodied in interprovincial trade in China accounts for 34.9 percent of total carbon storage, with cropland (44.9 percent) and woodland (43.6 percent) representing the highest proportions within their land-use categories. Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, and Tibet were found to be the most externally driven in terms of land-use-related carbon storage, with outflows exceeding 2,000 Tg C. Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, on the other hand, were shown to consume up to 90 percent of land-use-related carbon storage inflows, showcasing the strongest external dependence. Additionally, Hunan (1,300.5 Tg C), Hubei (863.4 Tg C), Henan (1,534.6 Tg C), and Shanxi (2,223.6 Tg C) are the provinces where changes in land-use carbon storage are most significant, exerting the greatest influence on changes in China’s total carbon storage. China’s international export of land-use-related embodied carbon storage decreased by 3,964.7 Tg C during the study period, with woodland (1,516.8 Tg C) and grassland (1,505.7 Tg C) being the primary declining land types. Interestingly, as land utilization efficiency continues to rise, over half of the provinces have seen an increase in export trade value, while their corresponding embodied carbon storage has declined. The findings not only unveil the complex dynamics and spatial distribution at work in China’s embodied land-use-related carbon storage but also provide practical insights and directions for achieving carbon neutrality goals.

The Coordinated Effects of CO2 and Air Pollutant Emission Changes Induced by Inter-Provincial Trade in China

Inter-provincial trade leads to changes in CO2 and air pollutant emissions. However, there is a research gap regarding the coordinated effects (co-effects) between embodied CO2 and air pollutant emissions in trade. Understanding co-effects in inter-provincial trade is a prerequisite for driving the green transformation of trade and achieving coordination between pollution and carbon reduction. Here, we calculated provincial-level CO2 and air pollutant emission leakage in 2012 and 2017 based on a modified input–output model and, for the first time, investigated the co-effects between CO2 and air pollutant emission leakage caused by emissions transfers in China. Three types of co-effects, categorized as co-benefits, trade-offs, and co-damage, were discovered and defined to reveal the provincial differences. Furthermore, combined with structural decomposition analysis (SDA), we calculated the interannual variation in trade-induced emissions and identified the key driving factors of provincial-level co-effects from 2012 to 2017. Optimizing the energy structure has led to the greatest co-benefits, while changes in the industrial structure and emission coefficients have led to limited co-benefits in specific provinces. Variations in trade volume have led to co-damages across all provinces, and changes in emission coefficients have led to trade-offs in the majority of provinces. The case analysis confirmed that identifying and adjusting the key driving factors of co-effects can promote the transformation from co-damage and trade-offs to co-benefits. The findings implied a new approach for the reduction in pollution and carbon through inter-provincial trade.

Impacts of water constraints on economic outputs and trade: A multi-regional input-output analysis in China

Water resource constraints pose significant challenges to sustainable development of economy, environment, and human society. This study addresses the existing gap in understanding the impacts of water resource constraints on economic outputs and inter-provincial trade in China. A water-use constrained multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model is developed to analyze the impacts on economic outputs resulting from different water constraints imposed on economic sectors. A series of scenarios are designed to represent different levels of sectoral water use restrictions based on short-term water policy and water stress alleviation targets. Results reveal that regions experience different levels of water stress displaying diverse economic impacts due to future water restrictions. Overall, national economic outputs will experience a 0.76–1.14% decrease compared to the baseline scenario, that is, the “business-as-usual” scenario. Provinces with lower levels of economic development tend to be less resilient to the economic losses arising from water constraints. As such, Ningxia and Shanxi show with the greatest relative economic impact, accounting for 7.09% and 4.21% of their respective provinces’ economic outputs under the baseline scenario. Furthermore, the direction of net bilateral trade, such as net trade between Henan and Shaanxi or between Henan and Hunan, would reverse under water constraint scenarios from the baseline scenario. This underscores the importance of considering the cascading effects of local water constraints on inter-provincial trade. Our study highlights the trade-offs between water conservation and economic development, emphasizing the need for region-specific water-saving measures.

Unveiling the unequal variation of regional carbon risk under inter-provincial trade in China

Development and emissions reduction are key conflicts that China needs to balance under the “dual‑carbon” goal. The risk of potential output loss due to limiting economic growth by carbon emission stress will be further propagated through the trading system. This study evaluated the level of regional carbon risk by constructing a carbon risk index, then quantified the transfer of carbon risk under interprovincial trade based on the multiregional input-output model, and ultimately revealed the unequal changes of carbon risk between provinces. The results show that the level of carbon risk was consistently higher in Northwest China (Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Xinjiang) and North China (Shandong, Hebei) during 2007–2017. There was an inequality between inter-provincial embodied carbon flow and carbon risk transfer, which made the sum of net carbon risk imports across provinces positive rather than zero. In addition, the risk-transfer value matrix identified helps to underpin mitigation actions across provinces, and the inter-provincial trade with a lower risk-transfer value needs to be improved. Furthermore, the continued increase of carbon risk in some less developed regions, such as Inner Mongolia, was found to be difficult to reverse, making it important to reduce emissions from the production side in order to minimize risk.

Understanding the impact of interprovincial trade on forest resources in China

Intensified interprovincial trade causes timber flows between regions in China, exacerbating the contradiction between economic development and forest conservation. To understand the impacts of interprovincial trade on forest resource depletion in China, this study developed a timber-extended multiregional input–output model to quantify the virtual timber harvest volume (THV) of each province. A forest stress index (FSI) is also developed to reflect the pressure of forest resource protection in different regions and evaluate the impacts of interprovincial trade on forest stress at national and provincial scales. The results showed that provinces within main forest zones (e.g., Guangxi, Guangdong, and Fujian) presented higher production-based THV than consumption-based THV while the opposite was true for provinces in the rest of the country (ROC) (e.g., Shanghai, Shandong, and Jiangsu). Interprovincial trade in China resulted in 36.86 million m3 of virtual timber flow annually (2008–2017 average), approximately 16.80% of the country's total production-based THV. During the study period, trade activities continuously reduced China's FSI, but ROC provinces mitigated their forest stress at the cost of increasing the burden on provinces in forest zones. Additionally, distant trade tended to have a stronger effect on provincial forest stress compared with trade between adjacent provinces. The findings identified the critical regions and trade routes that directly or indirectly drove forest degradation and revealed the effects of interprovincial trade on forest stress. Furthermore, this study proposed potential policy measures to promote the sustainable management of forest resources in China.

The inter-provincial trade inequality in China: An assessment of the impact of changes in built-up land and carbon storage

Inter-regional trade contributes to the expansion of built-up land and carbon storage loss, which results in inequality in unequal exchange. Revealing this inequality can help socio-environmental sustainability be better achieved. This paper uses a multi-regional input-output model to analyze the virtual built-up land flows embodied in the inter-provincial trade in China, and calculates the carbon storage loss caused by the expansion of built-up land. The inter-provincial trade inequality in China is discussed subsequently. The results show that regional unfair trade exists in China, and less developed regions are in an inferior position. Compared to less developed regions, developed regions obtain more benefits from inter-provincial trade, in both economic and environmental aspects. Regionally, the expansion of built-up land mainly occurs in the eastern and southern regions, which lost much carbon storage, especially Guangdong and Yunnan. Coastal regions had a high built-up land utilization efficiency, followed by the central regions. The built-up land interactions are mainly concentrated in the central and eastern regions, and the degree of trade participation in less developed regions is low.

Spatial-Temporal Evolution Analysis of Carbon Emissions Embodied in Inter-Provincial Trade in China.

Under the support of Multi-Regional Input–Output (MRIO) analysis, this study constructs the Embodied Carbon Emission Transfer Network (ECETN) using the input–output tables of 42 sectors in 31 provinces of China in 2012, 2015, and 2017 and applies a series of complex network measurement indicators and analysis methods to describe its evolution features. The results show that the embodied carbon emission transfers between provinces generally narrow over time. With its high clustering coefficient and short average path length, ECETN has small-world characteristics and behaves sensitively, and changes in individual provinces can quickly spread and affect the entire system. In addition, the clustering effect and the spatial spillover structural properties of ECETN are explored based on the block model analysis. Finally, Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) is used to analyze and quantify the contribution of provincial structural roles to ECETN, and it is found that spatial adjacency and differences in strength-in, strength-out, and betweenness centrality have significant positive effects, while differences in eigenvector centrality, clustering coefficient have significant negative effects. The restructuring of domestic trade can help achieve national emission reduction. These findings can provide more insights for the government to formulate future development directions and policies to reduce emissions further.

Study on the Agricultural Land Transfer Embodied in Inter-Provincial Trade in China

The research on the land resources embodied in the inter-regional economic linkages is of great significance for the ecological compensation and sustainable use of the cultivated land. We constructed a model to estimate the agricultural land transfer embodied in inter-regional trade by using the agricultural land footprint model and the multi-regional input–output model. Taking China as an example, using a 2017 multi-regional input–output table and agricultural land and production data, we evaluated the agricultural land footprints embodied in the inter-provincial demand–supply chain in China and explored their characteristics, revealing the balance of income and expenditure that makes up the agricultural land footprint in each region. The results show that: (1) In 2017, China’s total agricultural land footprint was 557.63 million ha2. Developed areas such as Shandong, Guangdong, and Jiangsu in the East generally had a greater footprint than the underdeveloped areas in the west. Provinces with more agricultural land do not necessarily have larger agricultural footprints. (2) The Agriculture, Hunting, Forestry, and Fishing industry and the Food, Beverages, and Tobacco industry were the main two sectors that contributed to the agricultural land footprint for each province, accounting for more than 60% of the total agricultural land footprint in China. (3) The embodied agricultural land transfer between regions showed two main directions on the whole: one was from north to south and the other from west to east, reflecting the transfer law of movement from the less developed regions to those that were more developed.

Evaluation of the water consumption of animal products and the virtual water flow pattern associated with interprovincial trade in China

Currently, the spatial mismatch between water and animal production in China has posed a great problem for the common security of food and water. Specially, the water resources in northern China are facing severer challenges due to the poor physical water condition and the increasing virtual water outflow. To analyze the characteristics of water consumption and virtual water flow embedded in animal products, this study assessed the water footprint of major animal products in 31 provinces and simulated the virtual water flow associated with the inter-provincial animal products trade, and also evaluated the effects of virtual water flow on regional water stress and economic development. The results show that the total water footprint of animal products is 392.81 billion m3, of which meat accounts for 81.20%. Besides, the water footprint of various animal products in different regions are significantly different, mainly owing to the local climatic condition and economic development degree. The virtual water flow associated with animal products is mainly from the water-scarce and underdeveloped northern regions to the water-rich and developed southern regions, which is as much as 61.39 billion m3 in 2015, accounting for more than 15% of the total water footprint of animal products. Therefore, the current virtual water flow pattern not only seriously aggravates the water scarcity in the output areas, but also widens the economic gap between the output areas and the input areas. To effectively solve aforementioned problems, this study proposed some countermeasures, including the improvement of water use efficiency for animal production, the adjustment of regional industrial structure to low-water and high-profit degree, and the integrated management framework of physical and virtual water.

The atmospheric lead emission, deposition, and environmental inequality driven by interprovincial trade in China

Lead (Pb) as a hazardous air pollutant has raised widespread concerns due to its adverse and toxic effects on the ecological environment and human health. Here we integrated the multi-regional input-output (MRIO) model and an atmospheric transport model to examine regional environmental inequality (REI) index induced by Pb emission transfers, and to evaluate the impacts of interprovincial trade on regional atmospheric Pb concentrations and dry deposition fluxes in China in 2012. In 2012, approximately 57.4% ~ 72.6% of Pb emissions in well-developed eastern regions (Beijing-Tianjin, Yangtze River Delta (YRD)) and the southern seaboard of China were embodied in other regions in China subject to the demands from these well-developed regions to industrial products and services. Our results, based on the net virtual flows of Pb emission and value-added, indicate that most provinces in the eastern seaboard of China outsource Pb emission and benefit from the interprovincial trade by reducing their Pb emissions. REI indexes show that the well-developed Guangdong province outsources its Pb emission but has low economic gains. Many less-developed provinces in central China enhance virtual Pb emission inflow but have high economic gains. Whereas, inland provinces in western China not only experience Pb emission increase, but also suffer from indirect economic loss due to trade with well-developed provinces to meet their increasing demands to Pb emission abundant industrial products from these provinces in eastern China which are mostly provided by less-developed but energy and mineral product abundant provinces in western China. For example, the province pair with highest REI index was Jiangsu-Inner Mongolia (REI = 2.47), which revealed that Jiangsu was the largest beneficiary which exported 37.2 t of net Pb emission and gained value-added of 521.4 billion RMB through trade with Inner Mongolia which suffered from both virtual Pb inflow and economic loss in 2012. As a result of interprovincial trade, Pb dry deposition in central and eastern China was decreased but increased in western China. Overall, interprovincial trade reduced 17.6% of atmospheric Pb dry deposition in China.

The transfer and driving factors of industrial embodied wastewater in China's interprovincial trade

Currently, interprovincial trade and the industrial division of labor in China are rapidly developing. The end users of products are not responsible for their wastewater discharge but indirectly transfer their own wastewater discharge to production locations through trade flows. This undoubtedly exacerbates the burden of environmental governance at production locations and results in the unreasonable sharing of discharge reduction responsibility between production and consumption areas of products. Studies that focus on the embodied wastewater transfer caused by interprovincial trade and its drivers are important for the formulation of equitable emission reduction targets and environmental policies. Therefore, based on the multiregional input-output (MRIO) model and structural decomposition analysis (SDA), this paper analyzes the transfer and driving factors of industrial embodied wastewater in interprovincial trade in China at the interprovincial and industrial sector levels. The results demonstrate that the transfer volume of industrial embodied wastewater increased from 5,423,884,700 tons in 2012 to 6,343,801,700 tons in 2015 in Chinese interprovincial trade, at a growth rate of 16.96%. The regions with industrial embodied wastewater net outflows were mainly located in eastern regions with a more well-developed manufacturing industry such as Shandong and Jiangsu, the net inflow areas were mainly concentrated in central and western regions such as Chongqing, Sichuan and Yunnan. From the perspective of the industrial sector, the chemical industry, papermaking and printing and manufacturing industry of cultural items, education resources and sports goods, and food manufacturing and tobacco processing industry were the three key sectors regarding the inflow and outflow of embodied wastewater in trade. Through SDA, it was found that the growth of the economic scale was the main reason for the outflow of industrial embodied wastewater in the various provinces. The technology effect imposed a negative influence on the transfer of industrial embodied wastewater in most provinces, especially in Henan and Guangxi. In the short term, technology improvements can be employed to reduce the transfer volume of industrial embodied wastewater, but in the long term, industrial structure optimization and upgrading are required to reduce the discharge and transfer of industrial embodied wastewater. Therefore, to reduce water pollution and control industrial wastewater discharge, it is necessary to consider the transfer and main driving factors of embodied wastewater caused by interprovincial trade when assigning environmental governance responsibilities to each province.

Mandarins make markets: Leadership rotations and inter-provincial trade in China

The careers of many public officials span multiple localities, yet the economic effects of their inter-regional movements are not well understood. This paper focuses on the rotation of provincial leaders in China and studies its impact on regional economic integration. Estimation results using the gravity framework indicate that when a provincial leader is appointed as the party secretary of a new province, the trade volume from the new province to the old province increases, but not vice versa. Additional analyses using two novel datasets that capture the intensity of inter-provincial socioeconomic activities in China corroborate this finding. We then construct a quantitative trade model that incorporates input-output linkages and show that removing such inter-provincial links associated with the rotation of provincial leaders leads to an average welfare loss of 0.03%.

The change pattern and driving factors of embodied SO2 emissions in China’s inter-provincial trade

This study analyzes the change pattern and driving factors of SO2 emissions embodied in inter-provincial trade in China during 2007–2012 based on environmentally extended input-output analysis (EEIOA) and structural decomposition analysis (SDA). The results show that: (1) SO2 emissions outsourced from highly developed coastal provinces to less developed inland provinces decreased sharply since 2007 while those from under-developed provinces like Henan and Hebei to the energy intensive provinces including Shanxi and Inner Mongolia have seen a significant increase. (2) The increased SO2 emissions induced by final demand of construction and heavy sectors in less developed provinces in central and western China have transferred to mining and energy production sectors in the northwest and northern China majorly through intermediate products trade. (3) The rising final demands for local finished and imported final products caused by investment demand are the main driver for the increase of SO2 emissions embodied in domestic imports in underdeveloped provinces in central and western China. Compared to the less developed inland provinces, the production and consumption modes of the developed coastal provinces are in transition to more favorable ways of reducing emissions embodied in domestic imports. Therefore, environment protection should center on reducing SO2 emissions transfer among less developed provinces caused by investment demands, more specifically, less developed provinces need to rationally plan the development of construction and heavy sectors. Meanwhile, provinces rich in resources and energy need to cut down SO2 emission through technical innovation.

The measurement and influencing factors of carbon transfers embodied in inter-provincial trade in China

Based on a measurement model for carbon transfers in bilateral trade between regions and an improved log-mean Divisia index decomposition method, this study estimates carbon transfers caused by inter-provincial demand and inter-provincial exports for 2007, 2010, and 2012 and investigates the main factors that affect net carbon transfers between provinces. The results show the following. First, in 2007–2012, the average carbon emissions caused by inter-provincial demand and inter-provincial exports account for about 35.4% and 8% of total production-based carbon emissions, respectively, which indicates that carbon transfers between provinces are widespread. Second, total carbon transfers caused by inter-provincial demand keep increasing, and in 2012, 19 provinces show net carbon outflows, and provinces located in the northern and central regions receive most net carbon inflows. By contrast, net carbon outflows induced by inter-provincial export keep decreasing and are concentrated in eight provinces in the Beijing–Tianjin, eastern, and southern coastal areas. Third, the scale and structural effects increase net carbon transfers between provinces in 2007–2010 and 2010–2012, respectively, whereas the technological effect reduces net carbon transfers between provinces in 2007–2012. Our empirical results suggest that carbon emissions and inter-provincial carbon transfers can be reduced effectively through inter-provincial cooperation and narrowing provincial differences in emissions reduction technology.

Water for maize for pigs for pork: An analysis of inter-provincial trade in China

Trade in commodities implies trade in virtual water (VW), which refers to the water that was used to produce the traded goods. Various studies have quantified international or inter-provincial virtual water (VW) flows related to the trade in crops and animal products. Until date, however, no effort has been undertaken to understand how the water embodied in traded feed crops (trade stage TS1) will be transferred further because of trade in animal products (trade stage TS2). This is the first study showing this mechanism, in a case study in China for maize (the major pig feed) and pork (the dominant meat), considering the period 2000–2013. We estimate the annual green and blue water footprints in maize production and then quantify the inter-provincial VW flows related to trade in maize (TS1) and trade in maize embodied in pork (TS2). Results show that in TS1, maize-related VW flowed from the water-scarce North to the water-rich South, with an increase of 40% over the study period (from 43 to 61 billion m3 y−1). In TS2, about 10% of the water embodied in maize exports from North to South China returns in the form of pork, with an increase in the absolute amount of 25% (from 4.8 to 6.1 billion m3 y−1). Considering blue VW flows specifically, we find that North-to-South blue VW flows decreased by 5% in TS1, while South-to-North blue VW flows increased by 23% in TS2.

The role of intermediate trade in the change of carbon flows within China

In recent years, evaluating the emissions embodied in trade (EEIT) has become an important area of policy and research. Multiregional input-output (MRIO) analysis, which links producers and final consumers, is a widely-used method for quantifying the EEIT. However, the role of intermediate trade in driving changes in the EEIT is still not fully incorporated in MRIO analysis and as a result poorly understood. Here, we present a framework that separately identifies the drivers of the emissions embodied in the trade of final and intermediate products. We implement this framework in a case study in which we analyse the changes in CO2 emissions embodied in interprovincial trade in China from 2007 to 2012. We find that the largest changes are a rising final demand, which is associated with increased emissions that are to some extent offset by decreasing emissions intensity and changing interregional dependency. The rising imports and the growth in final demand in less developed regions in the north and central (e.g., Hebei and Henan) led to reductions in the CO2 emissions outsourced by central coastal regions. The framework enriches our understanding of the role played by intermediate trade in the relocation of emissions.

Bilateral trust and trade: Evidence from China

AbstractBy changing transaction costs, trust can be a determinant of interregional economic exchange. Based on data sets of bilateral trust and trade at provincial level in China, this study investigates the trust–trade relationship empirically. As a channel of affecting bilateral trade, bilateral trust is incorporated into gravity models. By controlling for institutional quality, labour migration and other economic indicators, the baseline results show that the bilateral trust is positively correlated with the bilateral trade significantly. The sensitivity tests using an alternative estimation of interprovincial trade in China also confirm this positive trust–trade relationship. In addition, we use an instrumental‐variable estimation to control for the endogeneity of bilateral trust, and find that the trust–trade relationship is robust. This relationship seems to reveal that improving bilateral trust can be a new channel of boosting bilateral trade.

Cultural Differences and Interprovincial Trade in China: Effect of Surname Distance and its Mechanisms

Cultural Differences and Interprovincial Trade in China: Effect of Surname Distance and its Mechanisms

Value, Structure and Spatial Distribution of Interprovincial Trade in China

AbstractThis study uses two different datasets to explore the stylized facts of interprovincial trade in China during the recent two decades. One dataset provides the magnitude of bilateral interprovincial goods trade calculated using firms' value‐added tax invoices. The other supplies estimates of interprovincial trade using provincial input–output tables. We find that China has both a large value and a high growth rate of interprovincial trade, but there still exists a home bias in internal trade for most provinces. In addition, disaggregation by product shows that the manufacturing sector has the largest share of interprovincial trade and this share continues to grow. Finally, the spatial distribution of trade suggests that all provinces can be clustered into a smaller number of trade areas with large intra‐cluster trade. Therefore, China's central government should make more effort to reduce local protection, stimulate domestic demand and coordinate interregional trade among local jurisdictions.