IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/11862.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cost and Product Advantages: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Firms

Author

Listed:
  • Jaumandreu, Jordi
  • Yin, Heng

Abstract

We use data on 70,000 Chinese manufacturing firms that sell domestically and export to robustly estimate the joint distribution of unobserved productivity (cost advantages) and unobserved demand heterogeneity (product advantages) from 1998 to 2008. Product advantages show a trade off with cost advantages and are positively related to observed costs. Using the advantages we characterize Chinese manufacturing, that grew competing more on costs than in product advantages (which account for a significant but small 24% of growth). Our estimation highlights important biases affecting the estimates of the coefficients of the production function, demand elasticities and markups, when heterogeneity of demand or its correlation with productivity are ignored. With the separation of cost and product advantages, we revisit and reinterpret recent studies to find new results which change their policy consequences.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaumandreu, Jordi & Yin, Heng, 2017. "Cost and Product Advantages: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Firms," CEPR Discussion Papers 11862, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:11862
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP11862
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marc J. Melitz & Sašo Polanec, 2015. "Dynamic Olley-Pakes productivity decomposition with entry and exit," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 46(2), pages 362-375, June.
    2. Brandt, Loren & Van Biesebroeck, Johannes & Zhang, Yifan, 2012. "Creative accounting or creative destruction? Firm-level productivity growth in Chinese manufacturing," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 339-351.
    3. Olley, G Steven & Pakes, Ariel, 1996. "The Dynamics of Productivity in the Telecommunications Equipment Industry," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1263-1297, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Shengyu Liu & Heng Yin, 2017. "A Structural Method to Estimate Firm-level Capacity Utilization and Application to Chinese Heavy Industries," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 18(1), pages 1-28, May.
    2. L. Kamran Bilir & Eduardo Morales, 2016. "Innovation in the Global Firm," NBER Working Papers 22160, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrés César & Guillermo Falcone, 2020. "Heterogeneous Effects of Chinese Import Competition on Chilean Manufacturing Plants," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Spring 20), pages 1-60, December.
    2. Laiqun Jin & Xiuyan Liu & Sam Hak Kan Tang, 2021. "High-Technology Zones, Misallocation of Resources among Cities and Aggregate Productivity: Evidence from China," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 21-11, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    3. Jose Asturias & Sewon Hur & Timothy J. Kehoe & Kim J. Ruhl, 2023. "Firm Entry and Exit and Aggregate Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 48-105, January.
    4. Girum Abebe & Tigabu Degu & Gebrehiwot Ageba, 2018. "What drives productivity change in the manufacturing sector? Evidence from the metalworking industry in Ethiopia," Working Papers 020, Policy Studies Institute.
    5. Lin Zhou & Jianglong Li & Yangqing Dan & Chunping Xie & Houyin Long & Hongxun Liu, 2019. "Entering and Exiting: Productivity Evolution of Energy Supply in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-19, February.
    6. Konings, Jozef & Magerman, Glenn & Van Esbroeck, Dieter, 2023. "The impact of firm-level Covid rescue policies on productivity growth and reallocation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    7. Yang, Mian & Hong, Yili & Yang, Fuxia, 2022. "The effects of Mandatory Energy Efficiency Policy on resource allocation efficiency: Evidence from Chinese industrial sector," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 513-524.
    8. Pei Liu & Wei-Chiao Huang & Hao Chen, 2020. "Can the National Green Industrial Policy Improve Production Efficiency of Enterprises?—Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-17, August.
    9. Daniel Berkowitz, 2020. "Declining Market Competition in China," Working Paper 6897, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh.
    10. Wen Yue, 2021. "Government subsidy and aggregate productivity dynamics: Evidence from China," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 263-282, May.
    11. Qilin Mao & Jiayun Xu, 2024. "Zombie firms, misallocation and manufacturing capacity utilization rate: Evidence from China," Economics of Transition and Institutional Change, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(2), pages 641-682, April.
    12. Kuosmanen, Timo & Kuosmanen, Natalia, 2021. "Structural change decomposition of productivity without share weights," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 120-127.
    13. Sun, Chuanwang & Zhan, Yanhong & Gao, Xiang, 2023. "Does environmental regulation increase domestic value-added in exports? An empirical study of cleaner production standards in China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    14. Mao, Qilin & Sheng, Bin, 2017. "The impact of tariff reductions on firm dynamics and productivity in China: Does market-oriented transition matter?," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 168-194.
    15. Xiaoping Li & Shuzhou Peng & Wei‐Chiao Huang & Qian Zhou, 2022. "What Drives Chinese Firms' Export Sophistication? A Perspective from the Rise of Minimum Wages," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 30(2), pages 28-59, March.
    16. Doerr, Sebastian, 2018. "Collateral, Reallocation, and Aggregate Productivity: Evidence from the U.S. Housing Boom," MPRA Paper 106163, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Redha Fares, 2022. "Bankruptcy, Performance and Market Selection: Evidence from Firms in France," Erudite Ph.D Dissertations, Erudite, number ph22-01 edited by Claude Mathieu.
    18. Zhang, Hongsong, 2019. "Non-neutral technology, firm heterogeneity, and labor demand," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 145-168.
    19. Du, Pengcheng & Wang, Shuxun, 2020. "The effect of minimum wage on firm markup: Evidence from China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 241-250.
    20. Qizheng Gao & Jianqing Zhang & Guo Chen, 2023. "Firm heterogeneity, biased technological change, and total factor productivity: Evidence from China," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 147-177, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Productivity; Cost advantages; Demand heterogeneity; Product advantages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • D24 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Production; Cost; Capital; Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity; Capacity
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cpr:ceprdp:11862. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.