The Research On The Intra-industry Trade Of Sino-US Mechanical And Electrical Products And Its Influencing Factors

Since the end of the20th century, with the specialization of global divisionsystem, intra-industry trade has developed rapidly and has gradually replacedinter-industry, becoming the main trade pattern between different countries and themain source of the international trade interests. Previous studies mainly concentratedon intra-industry trade among developed countries. However, in recent years,intra-industry trade between developed countries and developing countries hasgradually aroused the attention of scholars, but most of them focus their study onJapan-centric Asian countries. China and the USA are the largest developed countriesand developing countries in the world, therefore the research on the level and thefeatures of Sino-US intra-industry trade could help contribute to the analysis of theirspecific position in international division, also, the study of the influential factors onintra-industry trade could shed some light on how to improve the current level andmake sure Sino-US intra-industry trade develop in the right direction. And last, thepattern of Sino-US intra-industry trade could also serve as a reference for the study ofbetween countries with different economic development level.As one of the most important trade partners of China, Sino-US trade reaches aconsiderable scale, of which the development of mechanical and electronic productsare the most significant. At present, the mechanical and electrical products havebecome the leading Sino-US trade products and the trend of development isreinforced with time. With the huge growth of mechanical and electrical productstrade, the real level of intra-industry of these products has became the focus ofattention. Moreover, the intra-industry trade, different from inter-industry trade,cannot directly reflect the comparative advantage between different trading nations,then is the rapid development of Sino-US mechanical and electrical products the reflection of the further expression of complementary comparative advantage inmechanical and electronic products or the result of increasing competitivenessbetween these two countries. This problem, combined with the influence direction ofvarious factors on Sino-US mechanical and electrical products within industry tradeinfluence direction, is the main aim of this paper.This paper firstly analyzes Sino-US mechanical and electrical products trade,then use the intra-industry trade index to measure the overall intra-industry trade leveland that of each chapter. On this basis, the paper sums up the basic characteristics anddevelopment trend of intra-industry trade of Sino-US mechanical and electricalproducts. The overall level of Sino-US mechanical and electrical products, even notsatisfactory, has made some progress, and the levels of different chapters vary fromproduct to product. From the perspective of complementary structure andcompetitiveness, on one hand, the complementary comparative advantage of Chinaand USA in mechanical and electrical products is increasing and China has evensurpassed Japanese in the volume of trade with USA. On the other hand, although thequality of trade products is enhancing, but most of them are still remain the verticalintra-industry trade, making China still be in the disadvantages end of the wholeindustrial chain. So it is concluded that the situation that the complementary structureoverweighing competitiveness is unlikely to be improved in the near future in thesetwo countries.Secondly, basing on the empirical analysis of the influential factors ofmechanical and electronic products, it is concluded that the difference of per capitaincome and scale economy are the most principal factors in promoting Sino-USintra-industry trade in mechanical and electronic products, from which it is obviousthat it is the theory of vertical intra-industry trade proposed by Falvey that is better inexplaining the development of Sino-US mechanical and electronic products trade.Combining the theoretical analysis and empirical analysis, it is obvious that theinhibiting factors of Sino-US trade are gradually reduced direct investment, Chinapresent poor technology and the restrictions imposed by US Government.At last, according to the present situation and existing problems of Sino-US mechanical and electrical products, this paper puts forward some targeted suggestionsto smooth the development of Sino-US trade.