Sustained economic growth in China has triggered a surge of energy imports, especially oil imports. This paper investigates the determinants of China’s energy import demand by using cointegraiton and VECM techniques. The findings suggest that, in the long run, growth of industrial production...

When attempting to identify empirical regularities in consumption patterns, their tremendous diversity across countries represents both a major opportunity and challenge. For example, consumers in rich countries devote less than 20 percent of their budget to food, while this rises to more than...

China and India have recently achieved spectacular economic growth. However, services in these two Asian giants have played a very different role. In India, the service sector contributes to more than 54 per cent of GDP while its GDP share in China is much smaller (below 41 per cent in 2004). To...

In 2003 China’s energy consumption amounted to 1678 million tonnes coal equivalent (MTCE), making China the world’s second largest consumer behind only the United States. China is now also one of the largest oil importers in the world. With an economy which is expected to maintain a rate of...

International food consumption has attracted a lot of attention in the literature. In particular, a series of studies have been conducted using the popular International Comparison Project (ICP) databases (released in the 1970s and 1980s). This paper adds to the growing literature by presenting...

China has enjoyed high economic growth for three decades since the initiative of economic reform in 1978. This growth has however been driven mainly by labour-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing activities. Has innovation played a role in China’s economic growth? What are the determinants...

Environmental regulation has become more and more important in policy making among the world economies. How has it affected productivity growth and hence economic growth? The answer to this question is either controversial or yet to be explored in many cases. The objective of this paper is to...

The increasing awareness of environmental protection has put great pressure on the improvement in environmental regulations in China. How has the current system performed in the nation’s rapidly growing economy? The answer to this question is either controversial or yet to be explored in the...

Ownership structure and industry characteristics as internal and external factors respectively significantly impact the export performance of Chinese manufacturing firms. Three different yet related models, namely, logit, tobit and ordered probit models, that correspond to three different...