A multi-regional representation of China's agricultural sectors

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to outline a version of SinoTERM, a multi-regional computable general equilibrium (CGE) model of China that has been updated and disaggregated further to enhance the agricultural detail. A version of the model is publicly available and will be useful to CGE modelers studying Chinese agricultural issues (www.monash.edu.au/policy/sinoterm.htm). Design/methodology/approach – The paper outlines data sources for building SinoTERM. It contains a CGE application to agriculture in China. Unlike the national input-output table published by the National Bureau of Statistics, the master database of SinoTERM contains many agricultural sectors. Findings – CGE models that represent a nation as a single economy may offer rich insights into winners and losers from particular policy scenarios. Multi-regional analysis takes this a step further by comparing outcomes for regions in which particular industries are a relatively large part of the economy. Research limitations/implications – This paper builds on the first SinoTERM paper in several ways. First, the database is disaggregated further to represent tea, sugar cane and silkworms as individual sectors in the CGE database. Second, given the extraordinary economic growth in China, the national and regional database has been updated to 2006 using data from the 2007 yearbook. Third, the paper contains an application to agriculture: it examines the impacts of productivity growth in different agricultural sectors in China. Originality/value – The regional CGE model used in this application could be used to explore many other policy issues concerning agriculture in China.