China’s Exports and the Oil Price

Authors

João Ricardo Faria
Andre V. Mollick, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Pedro H. Albuquerque
Miguel A. Leon-Ledesma

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2009

Abstract

The increase in oil prices in recent years has occurred concurrently with a rapid expansion of Chinese exports in the world markets, despite China being an oil importing country. In this paper we develop a theoretical model that explains the positive correlation between Chinese exports and the oil price. The model shows that Chinese growth can lead to an increase in oil prices that has a stronger impact on its export competitors. This is due to the large labor force surplus of China. We then examine this hypothesis by estimating a reduced form equation for Chinese exports using Rodrik (2006)’s measure of export competitiveness, together with the oil price, productivity, real exchange rate, and foreign industrial production over the monthly 1992-2005 period. The results suggest a stable relationship and yields slightly positive values for the price of oil and elastic coefficients for export competitiveness, along with the expected negative elasticity for the real exchange rate.

Comments

© 2009 Elsevier Inc. Original published version available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2009.04.003

Recommended Citation

Faria, João Ricardo, André Varella Mollick, Pedro H. Albuquerque, and Miguel A. León-Ledesma. “The Effect of Oil Price on China’s Exports.” China Economic Review, Symposium on Health Economics Issues in China, 20, no. 4 (December 2009): 793–805. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2009.04.003.

First Page

793

Last Page

805

Publication Title

China Economic Review

DOI

10.1016/j.chieco.2009.04.003