Author: Mike

The coverage I’ve read focuses, implicitly or explicitly, on the RMB [yuan 元] / US$ rate, that is, the bilateral context. (An exception is the graph in the latest Economist article, The Devaluation of the Yuan: The Battle of Midpoint, 15 Aug 2015, 63). Their focus is however capital flows, which as I’ve blogged about… Continue reading The Yuan: the bilateral US$ perspective is misleading →

See the link above!

This is a standard, 3 hour, no-notes “Blue Book” exam. Please conform to the guidelines for the Williams School. Return your exam and Blue Book, sealed, signed, and pledged to the front desk at the end of your exam slot.

I posted a link to the pdf of my powerpoint slides for my JMU talk on the menu bar. Here it is again: JMU China Issues Lessons from Japan v2 I made two main points. One is to present the challenge of enhancing farm incomes in a developing country. This leads to a political economy puzzle: why… Continue reading JMU Talk →

As noted in class, deindustrialization is a long-standing trend in the developed world, but the elasticity story is different than in agriculture: it’s that productivity rises faster than demand, so that the need for workers falls. In agriculture, it’s not so much that productivity rises faster than demand, but that demand doesn’t rise. So in… Continue reading It’s not just agriculture →

We’ll use the same books as in the fall, see the ISBN’s below if you’re seeking to order (used) books in advance. The structure of the course will be similar to the fall, but I will modify the details of paper assignments, add (and subtract) references and associated readings, perhaps assign class members to lead… Continue reading Econ 274 Winter 2015 →

Yes, Apple launched the iPhone in China. The market, however, is droids: about 300 million are in use (and another 400 million have been exported). What are the implications for the domestic market, and for global markets? First, there are gains from specialization and riding down the learning curve (a 1950s Boston Consulting Group discovery).… Continue reading China on Droids →

For your reference here are versions of the forex graphs I showed in class today. I put in (i) a log scale alongside the absolute scale for the US nominal exchange rate, (ii) the index of the nominal and real [CPI-adjusted] BIS trade-weighted exchange rate (plus the bilateral yen, euro and US$ rates). You can… Continue reading Forex Rate Graphs →

Alibaba is newsworthy. It’s not just the size of its IPO; it’s that (relative to Amazon) it has a business model that generates profits. Does that mean that buying the newly listed shares is sensible? The (Financial Times) FTAlphaville blog as the following graphy on the complex structure of the company. They also link to… Continue reading Alibaba →

Closing off its capital markets makes China a currency manipulator and costs US jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute and others. So urge China to open its capital markets. The EPI should be careful what it asks for. Capital controls mean that the assets of Chinese savers (household and business) are not diversified: no… Continue reading Chinese Currency Manipulation →

Site only partially updated for Fall 2014. Hessler, Peter. Country Driving. HarperCollins, 2010. ISBN 9780061804090 Li, Huaiyin. Village China. Stanford, 2009. ISBN 9780804776578 Ma, Damien and Adams, William. In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China’s Ascent in the Next Decade. Pearson FT Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0133133899 Miller, Tom. China’s Urban Billion:… Continue reading Fall 2014 →

Tidbits & Links of the week Slides on China Fertility Domestic & Intl Balances (pdf) China 2030 & IMF Article IV (pdf)  Final class retrospective China’s Future (pdf) [I’ve also put these links at the bottom of the schedule page.] NEW ==> Class Evaluation Form (pdf) < == NEW please put it in the envelope… Continue reading →