Asian Journal of Applied Economics

Provincial Differences in Cultural–Tourism Integration Efficiency and Their Driving Mechanisms in China

Haidong Sun — 2026-01-28

Background and Objectives: The integrated development of culture and tourism has become a central pillar of China’s strategy for promoting high-quality economic growth, industrial upgrading, and cultural soft power. Beyond its contribution to output expansion, cultural–tourism integration embodies the efficient reallocation of public resources, the coordination of cultural services and tourism markets, and the pursuit of balanced regional development. Despite its strategic importance, substantial disparities persist in the efficiency with which Chinese provinces transform fiscal, institutional, and human resources into cultural and tourism outputs. Existing empirical studies have provided valuable insights into cultural–tourism efficiency, yet many remain limited in scope, focusing on single regions or relying on isolated analytical techniques. Moreover, the structural sources of regional inequality and the mechanisms through which socio-economic and policy factors shape efficiency outcomes have not been systematically examined at the national level. Against this backdrop, this study aims to assess provincial differences in cultural–tourism integration efficiency across mainland China, to identify the structural sources of regional disparities, and to uncover the key driving mechanisms underlying these differences within a unified analytical framework.

Methodology: Using cross-sectional data for 31 provincial-level administrative regions in mainland China for the year 2023, this study adopts a three-step empirical strategy. First, an input-oriented Banker–Charnes–Cooper data envelopment analysis (BCC-DEA) model under variable returns to scale is employed to measure provincial cultural–tourism integration efficiency, focusing on the transformation of fiscal inputs, institutional capacity, and human resources into cultural service provision and tourism outputs. Second, to examine regional disparities and their structural sources, population-weighted Theil indices are calculated for a set of per-capita cultural and tourism indicators, allowing overall inequality to be decomposed into interregional and intraregional components. Third, drawing on the Ritchie–Crouch destination competitiveness framework, a driving-factor indicator system encompassing demand conditions, environmental foundations, policy support, and supporting elements is constructed. An entropy-weighted Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) approach is then applied to evaluate the relative importance and comprehensive influence of these driving factors across provinces. To enhance robustness and comparability, all indicators are subject to appropriate preprocessing, including winsorization and standardization where necessary.

Key Findings: The results reveal pronounced heterogeneity in cultural–tourism integration efficiency across China’s provinces. Overall efficiency levels remain relatively low nationwide, with only about one-third of provinces achieving DEA strong efficiency. Efficient provinces are primarily concentrated in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and parts of Central China, while many provinces in the Northeast, Northwest, and Southwest exhibit substantial inefficiencies characterized by input redundancy and output shortfalls. The Theil index analysis indicates that disparities in per-capita fiscal input constitute the most significant source of regional inequality, far exceeding disparities observed in public cultural services and tourism consumption outcomes. In contrast, indicators related to public cultural services, such as library circulation and museum visits, display relatively small disparities, suggesting the effectiveness of national equalization policies in this domain. The driving-factor analysis further demonstrates that household consumption capacity, population scale, and fiscal prioritization exert the strongest influence on provincial efficiency differences, whereas macroeconomic development level and higher-education resources play more limited roles in the short term. Provinces with stronger demand-side conditions and clearer fiscal prioritization tend to exhibit higher efficiency, while regions with weak consumption capacity and constrained fiscal support lag behind.

Policy Implications: These findings underscore the need for a coordinated and differentiated policy approach to improving cultural–tourism integration efficiency in China. First, performance-oriented fiscal allocation mechanisms should be strengthened to ensure that public spending is more effectively translated into cultural and tourism outputs, particularly in provinces with persistent inefficiencies. Second, demand-side cultivation policies aimed at enhancing household consumption capacity and expanding diversified cultural–tourism products can generate more immediate efficiency gains. Third, region-specific governance strategies are required to address structural disparities, with western and northeastern provinces benefiting from targeted support that aligns fiscal inputs with local demand conditions and resource endowments. Overall, improving cultural–tourism integration efficiency depends less on expanding resource inputs than on enhancing implementation quality, policy coordination, and demand–supply alignment, thereby promoting more balanced and high-quality cultural–tourism development across regions.

Pork Market Shocks and Inflation Dynamics in China

Guimin Yao — 2026-01-28

Background and Objectives: Pork occupies a central position in China’s consumption basket and plays a critical role in shaping inflation dynamics, particularly through its substantial weight in food prices and its salience in public inflation expectations. Fluctuations in pork prices have long been associated with the so-called “pig cycle,” traditionally viewed as a supply-driven phenomenon rooted in biological production lags. However, with the increasing complexity of China’s food system, market liberalization, and heightened uncertainty arising from disease outbreaks, policy interventions, and global shocks, pork prices are no longer determined solely by supply-side factors. Demand-side pressures and precautionary behavior have become increasingly important, potentially amplifying inflation volatility. Existing studies often rely on linear frameworks or event-based approaches, which may obscure the nonlinear and state-dependent nature of inflation responses to pork-market shocks. Against this backdrop, this study aims to examine how different types of pork-market structural shocks—supply, demand, and precautionary demand—affect inflation dynamics in China across distinct inflation volatility regimes. By explicitly incorporating regime dependence, the study seeks to provide a more nuanced understanding of pork-driven inflation transmission and its implications for macroeconomic stabilization.

Methodology: The analysis employs monthly data covering the period from January 2009 to November 2024. A two-stage empirical strategy is adopted. In the first stage, pork-market structural shocks are identified using a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) framework inspired by the commodity-market identification strategy proposed by Kilian. Pork supply shocks are proxied by changes in production, demand shocks by slaughter volume, and precautionary demand shocks by real pork prices. In the second stage, the transmission of these shocks to overall CPI inflation and food CPI inflation is examined using both a linear benchmark model and a nonlinear Markov-switching regression. The Markov-switching framework allows inflation dynamics to differ endogenously between low- and high-volatility regimes, capturing nonlinear pass-through mechanisms that cannot be identified in linear models. In addition, the study investigates the role of policy-specific economic policy uncertainty indices in driving regime transitions, thereby linking pork-market shocks to broader macroeconomic uncertainty.

Key Findings: The empirical results reveal strong state dependence in the inflationary effects of pork-market shocks. In low-volatility inflation regimes, supply shocks and precautionary demand shocks are the primary drivers of inflation, while demand shocks play a limited role. In contrast, during high-volatility regimes, demand shocks and precautionary behavior dominate inflation dynamics, indicating that consumption pressures and expectation-driven responses become more influential when inflation is unstable. Across both regimes, food CPI inflation responds more strongly to pork-market shocks than headline CPI inflation, underscoring pork’s role as a key amplifier of food-price pressures. The analysis further shows that supply shocks exhibit delayed effects on inflation, consistent with the long biological production cycle in pork markets, whereas demand and precautionary shocks exert more immediate impacts. Moreover, monetary policy uncertainty emerges as the most important factor triggering transitions between low- and high-volatility inflation regimes, highlighting the interaction between commodity-specific shocks and macroeconomic policy credibility.

Policy Implications: The findings point to the necessity of explicitly state-contingent inflation stabilization policies in China. In low-volatility environments, policy efforts should prioritize supply-side stabilization by enhancing production resilience, improving disease prevention, and strengthening the pork supply chain to mitigate delayed inflationary pressures. In high-volatility regimes, however, demand management and expectation anchoring become more critical, requiring timely policy communication, real-time price monitoring, and measures to curb precautionary and speculative behavior. Strengthening early-warning systems for pork prices and integrating information from futures markets and policy indicators can further improve inflation management. More broadly, the results suggest that effective inflation control in economies where staple food commodities play a central role requires adaptive policy frameworks that recognize nonlinear transmission mechanisms and regime-dependent dynamics.

The Relationship Between Spot and Future Cryptocurrencies: A VECM Approach

Souhir Amri Amamou — 2026-01-28

Background and Objectives: The rapid expansion of cryptocurrency derivatives markets has fundamentally reshaped price formation, risk transmission, and informational efficiency in digital asset ecosystems. Among these assets, Bitcoin occupies a dominant position, with spot and futures markets jointly influencing trading behavior, volatility dynamics, and inflationary spillovers into broader financial systems. While economic theory predicts a close linkage between underlying assets and their derivatives, the nature of this relationship in cryptocurrency markets remains complex due to extreme volatility, fragmented trading venues, and the absence of a centralized regulatory framework. Existing empirical studies provide mixed evidence on whether Bitcoin futures stabilize spot markets through improved price discovery or amplify volatility through speculative trading, particularly during crisis episodes. Moreover, much of the literature examines long-run equilibrium, short-run dynamics, or volatility spillovers in isolation, without integrating these dimensions within a unified analytical framework. Against this background, this study aims to investigate the short- and long-run relationships between Bitcoin spot and futures markets, to assess their roles in price discovery and volatility transmission, and to examine how major crisis episodes—specifically the COVID-19 pandemic and the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) event—affect market connectedness.

Methodology: The study employs daily data on Bitcoin spot and futures prices spanning the period from December 29, 2017, to February 18, 2025. The empirical analysis follows a multi-stage econometric strategy. First, unit root and cointegration tests are conducted to establish the time-series properties of the data and the existence of a long-run equilibrium relationship. A Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) is then estimated to capture both long-run cointegrating relationships and short-run adjustment dynamics, allowing for an explicit assessment of price discovery roles between spot and futures markets. To further explore time-varying interdependence and volatility spillovers, a two-step volatility framework is adopted. In the first step, a BEKK-GARCH model is used to model the dynamic variance–covariance structure and to extract conditional correlations between spot and futures returns. In the second step, these correlations are analyzed using a GJR-GARCH specification to capture asymmetric volatility effects and to quantify the impact of crisis episodes through event-specific dummy variables. This integrated approach enables a comprehensive examination of mean dynamics, volatility transmission, and crisis sensitivity within a single analytical framework.

Key Findings: The empirical results provide strong evidence of a stable long-run cointegrating relationship between Bitcoin spot and futures prices, indicating that the two markets are closely linked over time. Short-run dynamics reveal a clear asymmetry in adjustment behavior: deviations from the long-run equilibrium are primarily corrected through movements in the spot market, while the futures market plays a leading informational role, consistent with its function in price discovery. Volatility analysis uncovers significant and persistent bidirectional spillovers between spot and futures markets, suggesting a high degree of dynamic interdependence. The estimated GARCH parameters indicate strong volatility persistence and pronounced asymmetric effects, whereby negative shocks exert a larger and more persistent influence on market connectedness than positive shocks of similar magnitude. Crisis-specific analysis shows that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly weakened spot–futures connectedness, reflecting heightened uncertainty and structural disruption during periods of systemic stress. In contrast, the SVB episode does not exhibit a statistically significant impact on market interdependence, suggesting that not all financial disturbances transmit uniformly to cryptocurrency markets.

Policy Implications: The findings highlight the need for regulatory and supervisory frameworks that explicitly account for the interconnected and state-dependent nature of cryptocurrency markets. Given the leading role of futures markets in price discovery, enhancing transparency, liquidity oversight, and information disclosure in derivatives trading platforms is essential for maintaining orderly market functioning. The strong persistence and asymmetry in volatility spillovers further underscore the importance of real-time monitoring systems capable of identifying and mitigating the amplification of adverse shocks. During periods of heightened uncertainty, policy interventions should focus on stabilizing market expectations and limiting excessive speculative behavior that may exacerbate volatility transmission between spot and futures markets. More broadly, the results suggest that effective oversight of cryptocurrency markets requires adaptive, state-contingent regulatory approaches that recognize nonlinear dynamics and crisis-sensitive transmission mechanisms, thereby supporting market stability without stifling financial innovation.

The ปัจจัยที่ส่งผลกระทบต่อการค้าชายแดนสินค้าเกษตรของประเทศไทย

ณิธิชา ธรรมธนากูล — 2026-01-30

การค้าชายแดนมีบทบาทอย่างมากต่อภาคเศรษฐกิจของประเทศไทยในฐานะการเป็นตลาดส่งออกทางเลือกและการกระจายสินค้าเกษตรต่างๆ อย่างไรก็ตามการค้าชายแดนสินค้าเกษตรของประเทศไทยยังคงเผชิญกับความท้าทายต่าง ๆ ที่กลายมาเป็นอุปสรรคสำคัญต่อการขยายตัวทางการค้า เช่น อุปสรรคทางด้านการขนส่งและโลจิสติกส์ และความไม่มั่นคงทางการเมือง การศึกษาครั้งนี้ประยุกต์ใช้แบบจำลองแรงโน้มถ่วงซึ่งประมาณค่าสมการถดถอยแบบ Poisson Pseudo Maximum Likelihood (PPML) เพื่อศึกษาปัจจัยที่มีผลต่อการส่งออกสินค้าเกษตรของประเทศไทยไปยังประเทศเพื่อนบ้านที่มีชายแดนติดกัน ผลการศึกษาสำคัญชี้ให้เห็นว่า การเพิ่มขึ้นของจำนวนจุดผ่านแดน และการส่งเสริมด้านการอำนวยความสะดวกทางการค้าของอาเซียน มีผลเชิงบวกต่อการขยายตัวของการค้าสินค้าเกษตรของประเทศไทยไปยังประเทศเพื่อนบ้านที่มีชายแดนติดกันอย่างมีนัยสำคัญ อย่างไรก็ตามการมีข้อตกลงการค้าเสรีอาเซียนมีบทบาทค่อนข้างน้อยเมื่อเทียบกับทั้งสองปัจจัยดังกล่าว