This paper has two aims. The first is to reduce the range within which the true U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit lies. The second is to identify the determinants of the bilateral trade deficit, and offer an assessment of their relative importance. We calculate a smaller range of values for the bilateral trade deficit than in previous studies, due to a new estimation method that takes advantage of our access to detailed Chinese Customs data at the commodity level. For example, the revised U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit is $15 billion to $20 billion in 1994, and $16 billion to $22 billion in 1995, compared to the official range of $8 billion to $30 billion, and $9 billion to $34 billion, respectively. The widening of the U.S.-China bilateral trade deficit in recent years reflected many factors. In our opinion, the two chief factors are (i) macroeconomic forces in the U.S. and China moving in opposite directions, causing their respective overall trade balance to move in opposite directions; and (ii) the accelerated relocation of production of U.S. imports from East Asia to China.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by California Davis - Department of Economics in its series Department of Economics with number
98-09.
Length: Date of creation: Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:fth:caldec:98-09
Contact details of provider: Postal: University of California Davis - Department of Economics. One Shields Ave., California 95616-8578 Phone: (530) 752-0741 Fax: (530) 752-9382 Email: Web page: http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/ More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Thomas Krichel).
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)