The spectacular ongoing housing boom in China has generated great concerns around the world about the risk of a housing bust on the Chinese economy and the world economy. This column by four Harvard economists compares this housing boom with that experienced by the U.S. in 2000s and dissects its distinct characteristics — its fundamental support, enormous construction, and the delicate role played by government policies.
Privatization has boosted Chinese firms’ productivity, both in the short run and the long run. Consumer-oriented industries saw larger gains than “strategic” (heavily regulated) sectors. Chinese patents and “new product” surveys seem less reliable, because any statistics become useless once they become policy targets.
China’s high national savings rate—one of the highest in the world—is at the heart of its external/internal imbalances. High savings finance elevated investment when held domestically, and lead to external imbalances when they flow abroad. Today, China’s higher savings, compared to the global average, mostly emanate from the household sector, due to demographic...
The paper examines China's rising domestic content in exports using firm and customs transaction-level data. China's domestic content in exports increased from 65 percent in 2000 to 70 percent in 2007. The key reason for China’s ascent on global value chains is due to individual processing exporters substituting domestic products for imported materials, induced by the country’s trade and FDI liberalizations.
We bring new Chinese housing market data and analysis to the study of supply and demand conditions. There is substantial variation in supply–demand balances across markets. Bigger inventory overhangs predict lower house price growth the next year.