"Brain damage from one way of loving Taiwan" - Tu Chenhua

The essay attached below is written by Tu Chen-hua, associate professor, Institute of National Development, Taiwan University.

The author examined the claim that investment in mainland China apparently leads to reduction in investment inside the island of Taiwan.

He took the investment data of all Taiwanese companies from 1991 to 2005 and calculated the correlation coefficient, x=investment in mainland, y=investment in Taiwan

1. correlation coefficient = -0.83 for the period of 1991 to 2005. So apparently the data supports the claim, the 2 investment numbers are anti-correlated
   
2. He then break the data series into 2 parts. Lee Tenghui era (1991-1999) and Chen Shui-Bain era (2000-2005). Then the correlation coefficient for 1st series is -0.02. 2nd series -0.71. i.e. no correlation during LTH era, but anti-correlation during CSB era.

• Technical note: those who are not familiar with statistics may wonder how the "sum" of -.02 and -0.71 would produce an out-of-range -0.83, suffice it to say the difference in "end-data" (i.e. 1991 and 2005) plays a much larger role in linear correlation. i.e. -0.83 is mostly determined by comparing 1991-92 numbers with 2004-05 numbers. An extreme example: 1990:1; 1991:1.....2004,0.9; 2005; 0.95.

The conclusion: there is clearly a counter-example (1991-1999 series) for the zero-sum hypothesis . So the competition for investment capital is not the main factor for explaining the apparent anti-correlation from 2001-2005. Tu concluded that too much love could generate fever, and leads to "brain damage".

The authors proposed a few hypothesis for the decrease in investment inside Taiwan

• Decrease in investment in Taiwan is mainly a result of deteriorating investment environment in Taiwan, due to factors such as erratic changes in economic policies and decisions (so that enterprises are wary about long term investments)
• The growth in investment in mainland China is due to improving environment

To see if there is a constrain in overall sum available for investment, we can look at this chart.
While the % of investment in mainland increased steadily, the total amount of investement by Taiwanese companies (in Taiwan and in mainland) decreased significantly during the period. This would explain the slowing down of the economy in Taiwan. Taiwanese business have lost the entrepreneurship and willingness to invest for future. The result has already been observed in the past few years. The remedy is not to discourage investment in the mainland (the businessmen must believe they can make a lot money, and repatriate to Taiwan to spend, if they are willing to take the 6-10 hour flight ordeal), but to better the investment environment in Taiwan. And it is not neccessarily a zero sum game.

p.s. LTH is very outspoken about curbing investment in China these days. But I doubt if this is what he would do if he still is the decision maker. There is a difference between doing it yourself and pushing it to others in order to advance one's political objective. There is also the issue of the trade-off around sacrificing economic development for political/ideological objectives.

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愛台灣愛到頭腦壞掉

對於企業赴大陸投資金額應否放寬淨值40%限制的問題，在「經續會」中引發了熱烈的討論；相關的討論其實還在持續之中。部分反對開放的人士喜歡提出一種說法，就是兩岸的投資有如零和賽局，資金流向大陸之後對於台灣本土的投資就會減少；為了「台灣優先」，當然要對大陸投資設限，以免資金流失而使得台灣投資減少、所得下降！

這些人士雖然關心台灣、值得肯定，但因為不了解投資決策的本質，以為兩岸投資有如水流之物理現象，而獲得了錯誤的結論；筆者已撰文加以解析（見本報八月八日《論壇》版）。然而，極少數學者近日接受媒體訪談，發揮了學術研究的精神，提出數據印證這種兩岸投資「排擠效果」的現象。其主要論證是說：台灣對中國的投資率，即投資中國佔我國國內生產毛額的比例，在90年代末為0.4%，到了2005年上升到1.7%；而台灣本身的投資率（國內投資佔國內生產毛額的比例）剛好反向變動，由23.2%降到了18.9%。這種「反向變動」現象印證兩岸投資的排擠效果！

政權移轉前無排擠
為了初步檢驗這些極少數學者的直觀，我們可以更明確地觀察兩岸投資是否真的出現了「反向變動」的關係。我們可以利用經濟部投資審議委員會發布的各年度對大陸投資核准金額，以及行政院主計處發布的台灣固定投資數據，來簡單計算對大陸投資率和國內固定投資率兩者之間的「相關係數」。該係數若為零，表示兩者之間不存在著任何關聯性，若達到一表示具有100％的相關性；而正、負符號則表示這種相關性是正向或負向的。學術上將其視為一種簡單的測試，若要更嚴謹的檢測則還要進行迴歸分析或各種因果檢測。在1991到2005年的數據中，剔除1993和1997兩個台商補辦申報的年度來避免干擾，我們擁有13個年度的數據。經簡單計算得其相關係數為-0.83，在統計學上屬於高度負相關，似乎印證了極少數學界人士的前述說法，也就是只要對大陸投資增加，對台灣本地投資就會減少！
但是，如果我們將年度資料以政權更替的2000年分成兩部分，就發現令人驚異的結果─1991到1999年間兩變數的相關係數為-0.02，也就是趨近於零，完全沒有關係；而2000到2005年間兩變數間的相關係數仍高達-0.71。換言之，在台灣政權移轉之前，兩岸投資的確就像筆者所言，不存在著排擠的現象；但是在政權移轉之後，就產生了相當明顯的「排擠現象」。

「本土派」誤開藥方
其實，這剛好印證了許多人的看法：是因為台灣在政權移轉之後，以停建核四等「不按牌理出牌」的作為打亂了經濟政策，使得台灣的投資環境變差，才使得投資下降。而對岸因為持續成長、基礎設施改善，投資環境和獲利機會誘人，才使得台商提高了投資。特別是在台灣近年來資金籌碼寬鬆、利率低迷的環境下，連國際間也經常到台灣來進行借貸活動，顯示只要想投資台灣，資金根本不是問題；說對大陸投資會「排擠」對台灣的投資，簡直是一種缺乏常識的說法！兩個變數之間的「反向關係」其實是個別投資環境變動下的「結果」，而不是它們之間有什麼相互影響的「因果」。「本土派」人士有一顆「溫暖的心」，可惜缺乏一顆「冷靜的腦」，會因誤診病因而開錯藥方，反而讓台灣經濟更加沉淪！

作者為台灣大學國家發展研究所副教授，美國約翰霍浦金斯大學經濟學博士

杜震華

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