The Impact of the World Trade Organization: Evidence from China
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Since David Ricardo developed his theory of comparative advantage, it is a staple of elementary Economics that free trade between countries leads to all parties benefiting. General support for international trade has over time developed into the creation of organizations such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor World Trade Organization (WTO), which were created to encourage trade between partner countries. While there have been a multitude of economic studies about the value of such organizations, there is limited research about how they impact developing economies. As China joined the WTO in 2001, looking at how various industries and firms were differentially impacted by the WTO allows us to identify the winners of increased integration into the global economy. This paper will analyze the relevance of capital-intensiveness in how Chinese firms responded to the WTO. Using an immense database of firm level data in China, I determine that capital-intensive companies benefitted more from the WTO than their peers that depended on labor. More importantly, I call into question the prevailing belief in Western economic literature that labor intensive firms in China benefitted the most from greater global trade.
Description
Type of resource | text |
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Date created | May 2018 |
Creators/Contributors
Author | Hewett, Graeme Leighton | |
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Primary advisor | Klenow, Pete | |
Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Economics |
Subjects
Subject | Stanford Department of Economics |
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Subject | China |
Subject | WTO |
Subject | Capital |
Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Hewett, Graeme Leighton. (2018). The Impact of the World Trade Organization: Evidence from China. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/rm649pq3677
Collection
Stanford University, Department of Economics, Honors Theses
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