Economic Impacts of China's Accession to the World Trade Organization

Ianchovichina, Elena ; Martin, William

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCESSION;    ACCESSION AGREEMENT;    ACCESSION AGREEMENTS;    ACCESSION COMMITMENTS;    ACCESSION PROCESS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-3053
RP-ID  :  WPS3053

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Ianchovichina and Martin presentestimates of the impact of accession by China and ChineseTaipei to the World Trade Organization. China is estimatedto be the biggest beneficiary, followed by Chinese Taipeiand their major trading partners. Accession will boost thelabor-intensive manufacturing sectors in China, especiallythe textiles and apparel sector that will benefit directlyfrom the removal of quotas on textiles and apparel exportsto North America and Western Europe. Consequently,developing economies competing with China in third marketsmay suffer relatively small losses. China has alreadybenefited from the reforms undertaken between 1995 and 2001(US$31 billion) and trade reforms after accession will leadto additional gains of around $US10 billion. Accession willhave important distributional consequences for China, withwages of skilled workers and unskilled nonfarm workersrising in real terms and relative to farm incomes. Reductionin agricultural protection may hurt some farmers. Possiblepolicy changes considered to offset these impacts includereductions in barriers to labor mobility and improvements inrural education. The authors estimate that the removal ofthe hukou system would raise farm wages and allow 28 millionworkers to migrate to nonfarm jobs. If, in addition, thereis an increase in education spending that results in apercentage point increase in the annual skilled labor growthrate, approximately 32 million farm workers would leavetheir job for jobs in the nonfarm sectors. These policieswould not only facilitate the evolution of China'seconomy toward high-technology manufacturing and services,they have the potential to much more than offset anynegative impacts of accession on rural wages and ruralincomes generally.