Country-Level Impact of Global Recession and China's Stimulus
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IFPRI Discussion Paper 00979 May 2010 Country-Level Impact of Global Recession and China’s Stimulus Package A General Equilibrium Assessment Xinshen Diao Yumei Zhang Kevin Z. Chen Development Strategy and Governance Division INTERNATIONAL FOOD POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) was established in 1975. IFPRI is one of 15 agricultural research centers that receive principal funding from governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations, most of which are members of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). PARTNERS AND CONTRIBUTORS IFPRI gratefully acknowledges the generous unrestricted funding from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the World Bank. AUTHORS Xinshen Diao, International Food Policy Research Institute Senior Research Fellow, Development Strategy and Governance Division [email protected] Yumei Zhang, Chinese Academy of Agricltural Science Associate Research Fellow, Agricultural Information Institute [email protected] Kevin Z. Chen, International Food Policy Research Institute Senior Research Fellow, Development Strategy and Governance Division [email protected] Notices 1 Effective January 2007, the Discussion Paper series within each division and the Director General’s Office of IFPRI were merged into one IFPRI–wide Discussion Paper series. The new series begins with number 00689, reflecting the prior publication of 688 discussion papers within the dispersed series. The earlier series are available on IFPRI’s website at http://www.ifpri.org/publications/results/taxonomy%3A468. 2 IFPRI Discussion Papers contain preliminary material and research results. They have not been subject to formal external reviews managed by IFPRI’s Publications Review Committee but have been reviewed by at least one internal and/or external reviewer. They are circulated in order to stimulate discussion and critical comment. Copyright 2010 International Food Policy Research Institute. All rights reserved. Sections of this material may be reproduced for personal and not-for-profit use without the express written permission of but with acknowledgment to IFPRI. To reproduce the material contained herein for profit or commercial use requires express written permission. To obtain permission, contact the Communications Division at [email protected]. Contents Abstract v Abbreviations and Acronyms vi 1. Introduction 1 2. Impact Channel of the Global Financial Crisis on China’s Economy 3 3. The Agricultural Sector and Rural Economy 8 4. Stimulus Package: Policies and Investments 13 5. A Dynamic CGE Model for China 18 6. Assessing the Impact of Global Recession on China’s Economy 20 7. How Will the Stimulus Package Work Through the Economy? 25 8. Conclusion 32 Appendix: Supplementary Tables 33 References 36 iii List of Tables 1. Investment portfolio of China's stimulus package for the central government (Y100 million) 14 A.1. Growth rate of selected economic indicators 33 A. 2. Sector list in China's 2007 SAM 33 A.3a. Economic structure in China's 2007 SAM 34 A.3b. Economic structure in China's 2007 SAM (continue) 35 List of Figures 1. Ratios of trade to GDP, 2000–08 3 2. Growth rate of total exports and imports (%), 2000–09 4 3. Foreign direct investment growth rate (%), 2000–09 5 4. Growth rate in GDP and sectoral GDP (%), 2000–09 6 5. Rural and urban per capita real income and income growth rate, 2000-09 7 6. Change in consumer price index (CPI), 2000–09 7 7. Shares of crops, livestock, fishery and forestry in agricultural GDP (2000–08) and agricultural GDP annual growth rate (2000-09) 8 8. Growth in agricultural exports and imports (%), 2000-09 9 9. Share of total agricultural exports and imports for selected products, 2008 10 10. Agricultural producer price indexes (previous year's same quarter=100), 2000-09 10 11. Selected agricultural product prices, domestic and international (previous year's same month=100), 2001-08 11 12. Rural per capita annual real income at 2008 constant prices (1,000 Yuan) 12 13. Annual growth rate of total and sectoral GDP in the base run (%), 2008–15 21 14. Growth rate of total exports and imports (%), 2008–15 22 15. Growth rate of exports for selected manufacturing goods in the base run, 2008–15 23 16. Annual growth rate of total and sectoral GDP in the stimulus run (%), 2008–15 26 17. Growth in domestic demand and produced products, base and stimulus runs (%), 2008–15 27 18. Share of exports in total production, base and stimulus runs (%) 2008–15 28 19. Share of imports in total consumption, base and stimulus runs (%), 2008-15 28 20. Growth in low-skilled labor demand under the stimulus run (%), 2008–15 29 21. Growth in factor income for rural and urban households (%), 2008–15 30 22. Overall gains of the stimulus package in real GDP (RMB trillion), 2007–15 30 iv ABSTRACT A dynamic computable general equilibrium model is developed to assess the impact of the recent global recession and the Chinese government's stimulus package on China's economic growth. The model is first used to capture the actual sector-level economic growth in 2008 and the possible economic performance in 2009 without the intervention of the Chinese government through its stimulus package. Under this global recession scenario, the GDP growth rate in 2009 falls to 2.9 percent mainly as a result of the sharp drop in exports of manufactured goods, while the agricultural sector is more crisis-resilient. Because export-oriented manufacturing sectors are often import-intensive, the weakened economy is accompanied by a reduction in Chinese firms’ import demand for materials, intermediates, and capital goods. The model also shows that without government intervention, the negative effect of a one-year shock on the Chinese economy would last for many years. Also, over the next five to six years, China is unlikely to replicate its strong economic performance of the past two decades. China's stimulus package is modeled through increased investment financed by government resources. With additional demand on investment goods, growth in the investment-related production sector is stimulated. Through the cross-sector linkages in a general equilibrium model, the demand for other noncapital goods increases, thus stimulating growth in these sectors. As production of more industrialized sectors starts to grow, so will households' income and consumption, providing market opportunities for those agricultural and service sectors that mainly produce for the domestic market. Under the stimulus scenario, the Chinese economy is expected to grow 8–10 percent in 2009 and the succeeding years. The growth engine in this case differs from that before 2008: growth is led by domestic demand, while trade still falls significantly in 2009 (instead of the double-digit growth before 2008). Domestic demand-driven stimulus growth creates jobs, and hence it increases income for both urban and rural households. The model is also used to measure the overall gains of the stimulus package by comparing GDP between the two scenarios. Without considering the productivity-enhancing role of public investment as part of the stimulus package (which is important for long-term growth but unlikely to happen in the short run), the cumulative difference of the GDP between the two scenarios over the next seven years is about RMB76 trillion, which is about three times more than the GDP in 2007. Keywords: global financial crisis, China stimulus package, general equilibrium modeling v ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ADB Asian Development Bank CES constant elasticity of substitution CGE computable general equilibrium CPI consumer price index DCGE dynamic computable general equilibrium FDI foreign direct investment GDP gross domestic product GIMF global integrated monetary and fiscal model IMF International Monetary Fund IO Input-output model ODI Overseas Development Institute RMB renmimbi (Chinese currency) SAM social accounting matrix TFP total factor productivity WTO World Trade Organization Y yuan, the primary unit of Chinese currency vi 1. INTRODUCTION The world economy is going through its worst recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The 2008 financial crisis that started in the United States and some European developed countries quickly spread around the world, affecting almost all developed and developing countries. While some early signs seem to indicate that the financial crisis is over, economic recovery has a long way to go. The world economy continues to decline and the high unemployment rates in many countries are not expected to fall any time soon. The International Monetary Fund (IMF 2009a) predicted that the global GDP growth rate would be negative (-1.4 percent) in 2009, and the World Bank estimated that the number of poor people would increase by 53 million (Chen and Ravallion 2009). As one of the world’s largest exporting countries, China's economy has been hit by the global recession that caused a big slump in many developed countries’ import demand for Chinese goods. Also, because China is the world’s third largest importing country, such diminished global export demand for Chinese goods sharply reduced China's demand for raw material imports from developing countries and for intermediates and capital goods from the developed countries. Obviously, the Chinese economy is highly integrated with the world economy and measures taken by the Chinese government during the crisis will not only affect China's economy but also the global recovery process. China is one of the few countries to respond early and quickly to the crisis. Not only is the size of China's stimulus package of 4 trillion yuan (Y) (about US$600 billion) one of the largest in the world, the Chinese government has also adjusted its macroeconomic policies as part of its strategic response to the crisis. China's quick action and its sizable stimulus package also seems to have had an effect earlier than those adopted by other countries, since Chinese GDP growth started to recover during the second and third quarters of 2009.