| We assess the comparative advantage and protection of China's major agricultural crops using a modified Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and 1996 to 1998 data. We consider the following commodities: early indica rice, late indica rice, japonica rice, south wheat, north wheat, south corn, north corn, sorghum, soybean, rapeseed, cotton, tobacco, sugarcane, and a subset of fruits and vegetables. Consistent with the intuition of the simple Heckscher-Ohlin model, the results strongly suggest that China has a comparative advantage in labor-intensive crops, and a disadvantage in land-intensive crops. Specifically, land-intensive grain and oilseed crops are less socially profitable than fruits and vegetables. Within the grain sector, high quality rice and high quality... |
