IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/wotrrv/v16y2017i04p713-732_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sunshine over Shanghai: Can the WTO Illuminate the Murky World of Chinese SOEs?

Author

Listed:
  • WOLFE, ROBERT

Abstract

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are a major force in the Chinese economy and a growing presence in international trade and investment. The challenge to the WTO legal regime is commercial, given the size of SOEs and their share of Chinese output, and political, given worries that trade and investment by SOEs may be driven by public policy goals. And both challenges may be exacerbated by the murky world of Chinese SOEs. In this article, I first review whether Chinese SOEs are a problem for the WTO, and whether more sunshine on their operations might be a useful discipline. I then ask what we know about SOEs inside the WTO, including in the Trade Policy Review Mechanism. Since the answer is, not much, I consider whether mega-regional trade negotiations offer a better approach. My answer being negative, I finally consider whether an attempt to negotiate a WTO Reference Paper on SOEs might help. I conclude that transparency is likely to be a better discipline on the spillovers associated with SOEs than a search for binding rules, while also helping everyone better understand the efficiency effects.

Suggested Citation

  • Wolfe, Robert, 2017. "Sunshine over Shanghai: Can the WTO Illuminate the Murky World of Chinese SOEs?," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(4), pages 713-732, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:wotrrv:v:16:y:2017:i:04:p:713-732_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1474745617000283/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bernard Hoekman & Douglas Nelson, 2020. "Rethinking international subsidy rules," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(12), pages 3104-3132, December.
    2. Robert Wolfe, 2021. "Informal Learning and WTO Renewal: Using Thematic Sessions to Create More Opportunities for Dialogue," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(S3), pages 30-40, April.
    3. Petros C. Mavroidis & Merit E. Janow, 2017. "Free Markets, State Involvement, and the WTO: Chinese State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the Ring," RSCAS Working Papers 2017/13, European University Institute.
    4. Robert Wolfe, 2021. "Yours is bigger than mine! Could an index like the Producer Subsidy Equivalent help in understanding the comparative incidence of industrial subsidies?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 328-345, February.
    5. Bernard Hoekman & Robert Wolfe, 2021. "Reforming the World Trade Organization: Practitioner Perspectives from China, the EU, and the US," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 29(4), pages 1-34, July.
    6. Robert Wolfe, 2020. "Yours is Bigger than Mine! Could an Index like the PSE Help in Understanding the Comparative Incidence of Industrial Subsidies?," RSCAS Working Papers 2020/52, European University Institute.
    7. Robert Wolfe, 2020. "Informal Learning and WTO Renewal. Using Thematic Sessions to Create More Opportunities for Dialogue," RSCAS Working Papers 2020/51, European University Institute.
    8. Bernard Hoekman & Douglas Nelson, 2020. "Subsidies, Spillovers and Multilateral Cooperation," RSCAS Working Papers 2020/12, European University Institute.

    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:cup:wotrrv:v:16:y:2017:i:04:p:713-732_00. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/wtr .

    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.