Understanding the Role of China's Domestic Market in the (Unequal) Growth of World Economy

This study investigates the rising role of China’s domestic market expansion from 1995 to 2011 in the world economy’s growth. China maintained high domestic expenditure growth during the entire period, with even bigger increases in the last years, when the global financial crisis and subsequent economic recovery occurred. The expenditures facilitated rapid growth through high demand for durable goods, which are produced across widely fragmented Asian channels. At the same time, China integrated further into the global economy and imported intermediate goods increasingly became embedded in goods for domestic sale. These two forces combined to magnify the impact of China’s market expansion on foreign economies but disproportionately more on its neighboring countries and sectors related to durable goods production. Specifically, our estimates suggest that the expenditure growth in China over the 2009–2011 period added about 1 percentage point to the annual GDP growth rate in Taiwan, Malaysia, and Korea while the NAFTA and EU member countries typically benefited by less than 0.1 percentage point.