Study On Export Comparative Advantage And Its Persistency Of China's Citrus

Citrus fruit is planted widely in the world, with high nutritional value. In our country, citrus are mainly planted in the south, with the most planted hectares and the most production quantities in the world now. Citrus are labor-intensive products, while our country has much labor resources. Since we joined WTO, the export volume and sales of citrus are highly improved, though, the export volume is small with the ratio about 5% of domestic production. Since 2004, the cost of agricultural means of production and labor have risen rapidly, and the phenomenon of "being lack of peasent-labor" has been more and more prevalent. In this situation, it is with great practical guiding mean to refer to the export comparative advantage of our citrus, to analyze its persistency, and to put forward strategy ideas.This study applies Economics, Agricultural Economics, and International Trade comprehensively. And it manages to illustrate the law as to export comparative advantage and its persistency on China's citrus, and analyze the policy instructions the variables imply by means of integration of positive and normative studies and integration of quantitative and qualitative analysis. The other methods such as econometric models and describing statistical analysis are also used in course of the research.This study is composed of 6 chapters in logical order. ChapterⅠis preface. In the preface, the purpose and significance of the topic studied are clarified; the related concepts are identified, which include comparative advantage, export comparative advantage, and the persistency of export comparative advantage. The recent development of the research in this area at home and abroad is synthesized; the structure and research methods of this study are expounded; the main creative ideas and the possible problems are introduced. ChapterⅡintroduces the comparative advantage theory and its developments, and sorts out the methods and indexes to estimate the comparative advantage. ChapterⅢtells the total harvest areas and total production quantities of citrus in our whole country, analyzes the production cost structure of citrus and its developing trend obtaining the conclusion that average labor-day cost is the main factor leading to the rising of production cost. Then it tells the present situation of citrus export, foreshadowing the next chapter. ChapterⅣchooses the Revealed Comparative Advantage Index and International Market-Possessing Rates Index to measure the export comparative advantage of our citrus fruit, discovering that the export comparative advantage is strong at present. Meanwhile, it discusses the estimation result. ChapterⅤfirstly makes an empirical analysis of the citrus prices depending on their formation and the course of benefits distribution, by measuring the elasticity between the difference between the average export price in the world and the export price of our country and the citrus production cost, by measuring the elasticity between the difference between the export price and the purchasing price and the citrus production cost, and by measuring the elasticity between the difference between the purchasing price and the citrus production cost and the citrus production cost, discovering that our citrus export price was strongly influenced by international market. On this basis, it makes a short-term forecasting of the persistency of the export comparative advantage with ARMA model, and makes a long-run forecasting with the semi-log model in the direction of production cost especially in the direction of average labor-day cost. The long-term forecasting result shows that our citrus export comparative advantage is persistent now, because the average labor-day cost has not reach the second critical point, which makes the completely losing of export comparative advantage. If we consider the changing trend of exchange rate, the average labor-day cost and the real normal export price of our citrus has already reached the first critical point, which makes the beginning losing of the export comparative advantage. ChapterⅥgives advises to enhancing our citrus export comparative advantage.The possible innovative points of this study may be as follow three.First, it makes an empirical analysis of the citrus prices depending on their formation and the course of benefits distribution, by measuring the elasticity between the difference between the average export price in the world and the export price of our country and the citrus production cost, by measuring the elasticity between the difference between the export price and the purchasing price and the citrus production cost, and by measuring the elasticity between the difference between the purchasing price and the citrus production cost and the citrus production cost, discovering that our citrus export price was strongly influenced by international market.Second, it makes a long-run forecasting with the semi-log model in the direction of production cost especially in the direction of average labor-day cost. The conclusion obtained is new.Third, it proposes the concept of the persistency of export comparative advantage and its critical point for the first time, and measures them. The research shows that our citrus export comparative advantage is persistent now, because the average labor-day cost has not reach the second critical point, which makes the completely losing of export comparative advantage. If we consider the changing trend of exchange rate, the average labor-day cost and the real normal export price of our citrus have already reached the first critical point, which makes the beginning losing of the export comparative advantage.