A Study on Transport Costs and China＇s Exports： An Extended Gravity Model

This paper suggests an extending conventional gravity model design to empirically analyze the effect of transport costs and port efficiency on China's export flows. It shows that factor endowment and transport costs variables affect export trade value in directions that New Trade Theory(NTT) predicted. Also, the evidence indicates that, controlling for the effects of transport costs on trade, variables in traditional gravity model are consistent with previous empirical studies in both magnitudes and directions. Moreover, more than 22% of the variation in Chinese export trade can be explained by those three variables alone. The findings reported in this paper empirically explains how seriously transport costs and port efficiency affect China's export growth by comparing effects of labour production factor costs on external trade. It suggests that the improvement of port efficiency and reduction of road transport costs play a vital role in China's export competitiveness in the global market.

Empirical Analysis of Xinjiang's Bilateral Trade: Gravity Model Approach

Based on the basic trade gravity model and Xinjiang's practical situation, new explanatory variables (GDP, GDPpc and SCO) are introduced to build an extended trade gravity model fitting for Xinjiang's bilateral trade. From the empirical analysis of this model, it is proposed that those three variables affect the Xinjiang's bilateral trade posi- tively. Whereas, geographic distance is found to be a significant factor influencing Xinjiang’s bilateral trade negatively. Then, by the extended trade gravity model, this article analyzes the present trade situation between Xinjiang and its main trade partners quantitatively in 2004. The results indicate that Xinjiang cooperates with its most trade partners successfully in terms of present economic scale and developing level. Xinjiang has established successfully trade part- nership with Central Asia, Central Europe and Eastern Europe, Western Europe, East Asia and South Asia. However, the foreign trade development with West Asia is much slower. Finally, some suggestions on developing Xinjiang's for- eign trade are put forward.

Scaling Behavior for the Susceptibility of the Vacuum

Using the two-component superfluid model of Winterberg for space, two models for the susceptibility of the cosmic vacuum as a function of the cosmic scale parameter, a, are presented. We also consider the possibility that Newton’s constant can scale, i.e., G-1=G-1(a), to form the most general scaling laws for polarization of the vacuum. The positive and negative values for the Planckion mass, which form the basis of the Winterberg model, are inextricably linked to the value of G, and as such, both G and Planck mass are intrinsic properties of the vacuum. Scaling laws for the non-local, smeared, cosmic susceptibility, , the cosmic polarization, , the cosmic macroscopic gravitational field, , and the cosmic gravitational field mass density, , are worked out, with specific examples. At the end of recombination, i.e., the era of last scattering, using the polarization to explain dark matter, and the gravitational field mass density to explain dark energy, we find that, . While this is an unconventional assignment, differing from the ΛCDM model, we believe this is correct, as localized dark matter (LDM) contributions can be much higher in this epoch than cosmic smeared values for susceptibility. All density parameter assignments in Friedmanns’ equation are cosmic averages, valid for distance scales in excess of 100 Mpc in the current epoch. We also evaluate the transition from ordinary matter dominance, to dark matter dominance, for the cosmos as a whole. We obtain for the transition points, z=1.66, for susceptibility model I, and, z=2.53 , for susceptibility model II.