IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/cnpexx/v18y2013i5p680-714.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Foreign Exchange Accumulation and the Entrapment of Chinese Monetary Power: Towards a Balanced Growth Regime?

Author

Listed:
  • Mattias Vermeiren

Abstract

This article criticises the notion that China's foreign exchange reserves have strengthened its monetary power. While some scholars have argued that China's international monetary influence has been 'entrapped' by the domestic interests of its export sector, a one-sided focus on the export sector fails to identify the significant constraints on its macroeconomic autonomy. This article proposes an extension of the concept of entrapment that draws attention to the key role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their domestic fixed-asset investment in its growth regime: China's external monetary dependency - which is understood as both export dependency and the need to maintain foreign exchange accumulation - has been caused by a disparity between fixed-asset investment and private consumption that reflects a redistribution of income from the household sector to the SOE sector. In particular, I expose the SOE sector's rising interests in foreign exchange accumulation by uncovering a mutually reinforcing dynamic between China's external monetary dependence and the financial repression of its banking system. By entrenching an investment-led growth regime that provides key benefits the SOE sector, this dynamic is found to have seriously constrained the macroeconomic policy autonomy of Chinese authorities to rebalance growth away from investments and exports towards private consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Mattias Vermeiren, 2013. "Foreign Exchange Accumulation and the Entrapment of Chinese Monetary Power: Towards a Balanced Growth Regime?," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(5), pages 680-714, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:18:y:2013:i:5:p:680-714
    DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2013.736958
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13563467.2013.736958
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13563467.2013.736958?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie D. & Qian, XingWang, 2012. "Are Chinese trade flows different?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2127-2146.
    2. repec:zbw:bofitp:2012_014 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Barry Naughton, 2007. "The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262640643, December.
    4. Ronald McKinnon, 2011. "Worldwide Inflation and International Monetary Reform: Exchange Rates or Interest Rates?," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 19(5), pages 1-16, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hager, Sandy Brian, 2016. "A Global Bond: Explaining the Safe-Haven Status of US Treasury Securities," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 1-24.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Feng, Qu & Wu, Guiying Laura, 2018. "On the reverse causality between output and infrastructure: The case of China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 97-104.
    2. Abasov, Muzaffar, 2017. "Comparison of Chinese reform experience with other transition economies (in the example of Russia)," MPRA Paper 79841, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jarreau, Joachim & Poncet, Sandra, 2012. "Export sophistication and economic growth: Evidence from China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 281-292.
    4. Ari Van Assche & Chang Hong & Veerle Slootmaekers, 2008. "China's International Competitiveness: Reassessing the Evidence," LICOS Discussion Papers 20508, LICOS - Centre for Institutions and Economic Performance, KU Leuven.
    5. Da Teng & Douglas B. Fuller & Chengchun Li, 2018. "Institutional change and corporate governance diversity in China’s SOEs," Asia Pacific Business Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 273-293, May.
    6. Chloé Duvivier Duvivier & Mary-Françoise Renard & Shi Li, 2012. "Are workers close to cities paid higher non-agricultural wages in rural China?," CERDI Working papers halshs-00673698, HAL.
    7. Christian Dreger & Tongsan Wang & Yanqun Zhang, 2015. "Understanding Chinese Consumption: The Impact of Hukou," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 46(6), pages 1331-1344, November.
    8. Sai Ding & Alessandra Guariglia & John Knight & Junhong Yang, 2021. "Negative Investment in China: Financing Constraints and Restructuring versus Growth," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(4), pages 1411-1449.
    9. Fariha Kamal, 2014. "Does Firm Ownership Affect Spillover Opportunities? Evidence From Chinese Manufacturing," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 137-154, January.
    10. Thorbecke, Willem & Chen, Chen & Salike, Nimesh, 2021. "China’s exports in a protectionist world," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    11. Chen, Shuo & Lan, Xiaohuan, 2020. "Tractor vs. animal: Rural reforms and technology adoption in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    12. David Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson, 2023. "Trading places: Mobility responses of native and foreign-born adults to the China trade shock," POID Working Papers 074, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. Yong He & Hong Zhou, 2011. "Estimating Chinese Interprovincial OutPut Spillovers with Provincial Input-Output Tables," CERDI Working papers halshs-00553102, HAL.
    14. Shalendra D. Sharma, 2009. "Dealing with the Contagion: China and India in the Aftermath of the Subprime Meltdown," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 17(2), pages 1-14, March.
    15. Machacek, Erika & Fold, Niels, 2014. "Alternative value chains for rare earths: The Anglo-deposit developers," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 53-64.
    16. Willem Thorbecke, 2013. "Investigating China's Disaggregated Processed Exports: Evidence that Both the RMB and Exchange Rates in Supply Chain Countries Matter," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(10), pages 1245-1260, October.
    17. Poncet, Sandra & Steingress, Walter & Vandenbussche, Hylke, 2010. "Financial constraints in China: Firm-level evidence," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 411-422, September.
    18. David H. Autor & David Dorn & Gordon H. Hanson & Jae Song, 2014. "Trade Adjustment: Worker-Level Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(4), pages 1799-1860.
    19. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie D. & Qian, XingWang, 2014. "The structural behavior of China–US trade flows," BOFIT Discussion Papers 23/2014, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    20. Prema-chandra Athukorala & Hal Hill, 2010. "Asian trade: long-term patterns and key policy issues," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 24(2), pages 52-82, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:18:y:2013:i:5:p:680-714. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/cnpe20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.