• International Area Studies Review
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.175-196
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• 2011

The developing countries have a lot of dormant resources, attempting the take-off of economic growth. The theory of 'vent for surplus' and Lewis model provide a good cornerstones to analyze the effect of export, FDI and domestic production on employment. This paper attempts to do empirical test to figure out what factor is significant as the determinant of Chinese employment. For this test, the estimation equations are derived from the Cobb-Douglas production function. The results are that the domestic production affects the most positive employment, compared to FDI and export. Unlikely general expectation, export doesn't have an substantial effect on employment in China. It is also found that the absorption of technology through export is lower than that of FDI in terms of the effect of technology on employment. So it is suggested that the employment policy should be shifted toward the increase of domestic production by using FDI rather than by promoting export industry. to reduce the internal imbalance.