Pourquoi la réévaluation du renminbi pourrait-elle contribuer à accroître la productivité du travail en Chine ?

Since several years China has been put under a strong pressure of international community in order that she revaluates the renminbi, generally considered as undervaluated, because of the rapid growth of labour productivity. However, this last one accelerated since 1994, when China, instead of devaluating regularly its currency, began either to stabilize or revaluate it. What impact has the real appreciation of the renminbi exerted on the labour productivity is therefore a topical issue. This article presents different kinds of real exchange rate effects on labour productivity, which are estimated, using panel data for the twenty-nine Chinese provinces and for the period from 1986 to 2007. The econometric results show that the appreciation of the real exchange rate has a favourable effect on the labour productivity growth, leading to a kind of virtuous circle : the real appreciation of the currency boosts the growth of labour productivity while, according to the Balassa-Samuelson effect, productivity growth in turn tends to push up the real appreciation. Moreover, this favourable effect is stronger in inland provinces than in coastal provinces, contributing to a minimizing of the gap of GDP per capita between inland and coastal provinces.