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Economic Affairs

Off the Epicenter: COVID-19 Quarantine Controls and Employment, Education, and Health Impacts in Rural Communities

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In late January 2020, China’s government initiated its first aggressive measures to combat COVID-19 by forbidding individuals from leaving their homes, radically limiting public transportation, cancelling or postponing large public events, and closing schools across the country. The rollout of these measures coincided with China’s Lunar New Year holiday, during which more than 280 million people had returned from their places of work to their home villages in rural areas. The disease control policies remained in place until late February and early March, when they were gradually loosened to allow for more free movement of people. Among those that were allowed to move again were the hundreds of millions of migrant workers who originally (before the COVID-19 outbreak) had expected to return to China’s urban and industrial centers to continue working in the nation’s factories, construction sites and service sector. 

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Huan Wang
Yue Ma
Prashant Loyalka
Matthew Boswell
Scott Rozelle

Challenges to the United States: Japan in the 1980s and China today

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This event is held virtually via Zoom. Please register for the webinar via the below link.

Registration Link: https://bit.ly/2SS6DpY

 

This event is co-sponsored by the Shorenstein APARC Japan Program and China Program.

Japan's economic challenge to the United States in the 1980s aroused more concern in the United States than people now realize. Japan took some very effective steps to stop it. China's challenge plays out across the economic, military, technological, and global influence spheres. China has not yet taken steps to stop it and the tensions are increasingly serious and show no signs of diminishing. Japan has also found better ways to reduce tensions with China than has the United States. While the circumstances are different between the 1980s and today, Japan’s dealings with the United States in the 1980s might offer some lessons for China today. Dr. Ezra Vogel, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, will discuss these topics and more during this webinar. The event will conclude with an audience Q&A moderated by Japan Program Director Kiyoteru Tsutsui and China Program Director Jean Oi.

SPEAKER

Portrait of Dr. Ezra Vogel, Professor Emeritus at Harvard University

Professor Ezra F. Vogel is Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. Vogel received his PhD at Harvard in 1958 in Sociology in the Department of Social Relations and was a professor at Harvard from 1967-2000. In 1973, he succeeded John Fairbank to become the second Director of Harvard's East Asian Research Center. At Harvard, he served as director of the US-Japan Program, director of the Fairbank Center, and as the founding director of the Asia Center. From fall 1993 to fall 1995, Vogel was the National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council in Washington. His book Japan As Number One (1979), in Japanese translation, became a best seller in Japan, and his book Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011), in Chinese translation, became a best seller in China. He lectures frequently in Asia, in both Chinese and Japanese. He has received numerous honors, including eleven honorary degrees.

Via Zoom Webinar.

Registration Link: https://bit.ly/2SS6DpY

Ezra Vogel, Professor Emeritus <br>Harvard University</br>
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Is Korean Democracy in Crisis?

In recent years, we have witnessed a worldwide trend of "democratic depression" in both young and established democracies, where the backsliding from democracy is facilitated by various forces such as populism, nationalism, partisan polarization, and post-truth. Korea is no exception. While the signs of democratic decline are subtle and disguised under the rule of law, they are producing piecemeal erosions of liberal democracy and pluralism in many corners of the Korean society. As a timely warning against the gradual decline of democratic norms and values, this 3-part conference seeks to examine the forces that endanger the Korean democracy and aims to offer some concrete policy prescriptions to remedy the existing and growing signs of democratic decline.

Topics Discussed:

Day 1: November 12, 2020 (4PM-7PM)

  • Political culture and polarization: Pitfall of political over-participation or “street-democracy"
  • Underdevelopment of party politics: Factionalism, weak institutionalization, and poor appreciation
  • Erosion in balance of power: Courts losing legitimacy and respect with politicization
  • Uses and misuses of nationalism in politics

Day 2: November 13, 2020 (4PM-6PM)

  • Two divergences in South Korea’s Economy: Regional and generational disparities
  • Challenges of post-truth: Politicization and polarization of the press, social media, disinformation
  • Education and its impact on civic value and generational gap

Day 3: November 19, 2020 (4PM-6:15PM)

  • Politicization of civil society: Losing function as watchdog of power, former democratic activists becoming new authoritarian leaders
  • How the rise of populist regime affects foreign policy
  • Korean democracy in comparative perspectives

The conference papers will be published as an edited volume.

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Via Zoom

Conferences

China’s Belt, Road, and Beyond: State Mobilization and Localized Implementation

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This is a virtual event. Please click here to register and generate a link to the talk. 
The link will be unique to you; please save it and do not share with others.

Most people attribute the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to Beijing’s imperialist ambitions. In her talk, Professor Min Ye will go beyond top-level rhetoric, however, and investigate BRI’s origins, its implementation, and its on-the-ground effects inside China. She will unpack different local governments' approaches to the BRI by discussing how subnational entities have leveraged Beijing’s grand strategy and how the implementation of projects and programs related to the BRI facilitate local economic agendas. China’s local developmentalism, which has undergirded not only the BRI but also other national-level strategies (like the Western Development Program and China Goes Global policy), has propelled the Chinese economy from a middle power in 1998 to a superpower in 2018. The talk will conclude with a discussion of COVID-19’s impact on China’s BRI as well as preliminary findings from Professor Ye’s current research into other state-mobilized development initiatives in China.
 

Portrait of Professor Min Ye
Min Ye is an Associate Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University. Her research lies in the nexus between domestic and global politics and economics and security, focusing on China, India, and regional relations. Her publications include The Belt, Road, and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China 1998 -- 2018 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Diasporas and Foreign Direct Investment in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and The Making of Northeast Asia (with Kent Calder, Stanford University Press, 2010). She has received a Smith Richardson Foundation grant (2016-2018), the East Asia Peace, Prosperity, and Governance Fellowship (2013), Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program post-doctoral fellowship (2009-2010), and Millennium Education Scholarship in Japan (2006). In 2014-2016, Min Ye was an NCUSCR Public Intellectual Program fellow. Ye is currently the 2020 Rosenberg Scholar of East Asian Studies at Suffolk University.

Via Zoom Webinar. Register at: https://bit.ly/3kJlhM9

Min Ye Associate Professor, Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University
Seminars

Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise — Book Launch Event

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This event will take place on Zoom. Registration is required: http://bit.ly/Invisible_China

Book cover for "Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China's Rise" and a quote from Scott Rozelle, "The entire population of 800 million people has become almost fully invisible over the past decades..."

As the glittering skyline in Shanghai seemingly attests, China has quickly transformed itself from a place of stark poverty into a modern, urban, technologically savvy economic powerhouse. But as FSI Senior Fellow Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell show in their new book Invisible China, the truth is much more complicated and might be a serious cause for concern.

Drawing on extensive surveys on the ground in China, Rozelle and Hell reveal that while China may be the second-largest economy in the world, its labor force has one of the lowest levels of education of any comparable country. The low levels of basic education of such a large share of workers may leave many unable to find work in the formal workplace as China’s economy changes and manufacturing jobs move elsewhere.

In this book talk event, Rozelle, who is also the director of FSI’s Rural Education Action Program, will be joined by Hongbin Li, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and director of the China Program at the Stanford King Center on Global Development, who will moderate a discussion about the major themes of the book. A question and answer session with the audience will follow the discussion.

 

scott rozelle new headshot

Scott Rozelle holds the Helen Farnsworth Endowed Professorship at Stanford University and is Senior Fellow in the Food Security and Environment Program and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) for International Studies. For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In recent years Rozelle spends most of his time co-directing the Rural Education Action Project (REAP). In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

hongbin li headshot

 

Hongbin Li is the James Liang Director of the China Program at the Stanford King Center on Global Development, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.

 

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Dr. Yuen Yuen Ang Awarded Theda Skocpol Prize for Emerging Scholars

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Yuen Yuen Ang, a former postdoctoral student of China Program Director Jean Oi, has been awarded the Theda Skocpol Prize by the American Political Science Association in recognition of her “impactful empirical, theoretical and/or methodological contributions to the study of comparative politics.” The prize recognizes emerging academics up to ten years post-PhD for scholarly excellence in political science. Ang is a Stanford Ph.D. alumna and current associate professor of political science at the University of Michigan.

Her research examines how governments and governing organizations react to radical uncertainty and novel problems. She posits that such disruptions are an endemic condition of the twenty-first century, and that examining the political economies of adapting, or failing to adapt, to rapidly changing realities is a key to understanding current geopolitics.

At the center of Ang’s work is the study of China’s rise as a global superpower, which she characterizes as one of the greatest disruptions of the contemporary world. In her highly acclaimed and award-winning book, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap (2016), Ang challenges the conventional linear models of the political economy of development by applying the principles of complexity and system thinking to offer a new explanation of how China transformed itself from an impoverished planned economy into the world’s second-largest GDP.

Ang’s current work into debunking the myths surrounding the U.S.-China tech race, the misunderstanding of nuances of the Belt and Road Initiative, and the debates swirling around China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to build on her record of excellent and innovative scholarship.

A big congratulations to Yuen Yuen for her latest recognition and ongoing contributions to the field of contemporary Asis studies!

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(Left) Congratulations Adam Yao Liu, Winner of the 2020 BRICS Economic Research Award; (Right) Portrait of Dr. Adam Liu
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Stanford Ph.D. Alumnus Wins BRICS Economic Research Award

Dr. Adam Yao Liu, a former doctoral student of APARC China Program Director Jean Oi, has been awarded the 2020 BRICS Economic Research Award for his research on how banking systems in China are developing.
Stanford Ph.D. Alumnus Wins BRICS Economic Research Award
Shiran Shen (left) and Lizhi Liu (right)
News

Former Doctoral Students Win Prestigious Dissertation Awards

Interdisciplinary environmental scholar Shiran Victoria Shen is the recipient of the Harold D. Lasswell Award and political economist Lizhi Liu is the recipient of the Ronald H. Coase Award in recognition of their outstanding doctoral dissertations.
Former Doctoral Students Win Prestigious Dissertation Awards
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(Left) Yuen Yuen Ang; (Right) Congratulations Yuen Yuen Ang, Winner of the Theda Skocpol Prize from the American Political Science Association
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Subtitle

Former China Program postdoc and Stanford Ph.D alumna Yuen Yuen Ang has received the Theda Skocpol Prize for Emerging Scholars from the American Political Science Association for her scholarship on China’s transformation into a global superpower.

Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise

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Book Synopsis:

As the glittering skyline in Shanghai seemingly attests, China has quickly transformed itself from a place of stark poverty into a modern, urban, technologically savvy economic powerhouse. But as Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell show in Invisible China, the truth is much more complicated and might be a serious cause for concern.

China’s growth has relied heavily on unskilled labor. Most of the workers who have fueled the country’s rise come from rural villages and have never been to high school. While this national growth strategy has been effective for three decades, the unskilled wage rate is finally rising, inducing companies inside China to automate at an unprecedented rate and triggering an exodus of companies seeking cheaper labor in other countries. Ten years ago, almost every product for sale in an American Walmart was made in China. Today, that is no longer the case. With the changing demand for labor, China seems to have no good back-up plan. For all of its investment in physical infrastructure, for decades China failed to invest enough in its people. Recent progress may come too late. Drawing on extensive surveys on the ground in China, Rozelle and Hell reveal that while China may be the second-largest economy in the world, its labor force has one of the lowest levels of education of any comparable country. Over half of China’s population—as well as a vast majority of its children—are from rural areas. Their low levels of basic education may leave many unable to find work in the formal workplace as China’s economy changes and manufacturing jobs move elsewhere.

In Invisible China, Rozelle and Hell speak not only to an urgent humanitarian concern but also a potential economic crisis that could upend economies and foreign relations around the globe. If too many are left structurally unemployable, the implications both inside and outside of China could be serious. Understanding the situation in China today is essential if we are to avoid a potential crisis of international proportions. This book is an urgent and timely call to action that should be read by economists, policymakers, the business community, and general readers alike.

Meet the Authors:

scott rozelle new headshot
Scott Rozelle: Scott is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of the Rural Education Action Program in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. His research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; the emergence and evolution of markets and other economic institutions in the transition process and their implications for equity and efficiency; and the economics of poverty and inequality, with an emphasis on rural education, health and nutrition. He has been published in top academic journals and has authored over 500 articles, chapters, and books. 

 

Headshot of Natalie Hell.
Natalie Hell: Natalie is a writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. As part of Stanford University’s Rural Education Action Program, she has worked on Chinese education and health issues for seven years. This work has included managing numerous large-scale field studies and conducting extensive qualitative interviews across rural China. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Chinese language and political science from Williams College, and is a fluent Mandarin speaker.

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South Korea's Strategy in Times of a Great Economic Decoupling

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Please register at www.eai-aparc-seminar.or.kr on the day of the event.

A panel of experts in international relations and commerce will discuss challenges facing South Korea and the country's strategy in light of the current tensions between the U.S. and China. This event is co-sponsored by East Asia Institute in Korea.

Panelists:

David Kang, Maria Crutcher Professor in International Relations; Professor of Business, and East Asia Languages and Cultures; Director of Korean Studies Institute, USC

Seungjoo Lee, Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Chung-Ang University, Korea

Charles Freeman, Senior Vice President for Asia, U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Taeho Bark, President, Lee&Ko Global Commerce Institute; former Minister of Trade, Korea

Discussants:

Yong Suk Lee, Deputy Director of the Korea Program, Shorestein APARC; SK Center Fellow, FSI,  Stanford University

Seong-Ho Sheen, Professor of International Security, Graduate School of International Studies, Seoul National University, Korea

Moderators:

Gi-Wook Shin, Director of APARC; Senior Fellow, FSI; William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea; Professor of Sociology, Stanford University

Yul Sohn, President, East Asia Institute; Professor, Graduate School of International Studies, Yonsei University, Korea

Watch the recorded event at https://youtu.be/Hoz0cXtQfR4.

Live stream: Register at www.eai-aparc-seminar.or.kr on the day of the event.

Panel Discussions
Korean Studies Colloquium Series

Dissecting Mechanisms of Financial Crises: Intermediation and Sentiment

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We develop a model of financial crises with both a financial amplification mechanism, via frictional intermediation, and a role for sentiment, via time-varying beliefs about an illiquidity state. We confront the model with data on credit spreads, equity prices, credit, and output across the financial crisis cycle. In particular, we ask the model to match data on the frothy pre-crisis behavior of asset markets and credit, the sharp transition to a crisis where asset values fall, disintermediation occurs and output falls, and the post-crisis period characterized by a slow recovery in output. We find that a pure amplification mechanism quantitatively matches the crisis and aftermath period but fails to match the pre-crisis evidence. Mixing sentiment and amplification allows the model to additionally match the pre-crisis evidence. We consider two versions of sentiment, a Bayesian belief updating process and one that overweighs recent observations. We find that both models match the crisis patterns qualitatively, generating froth pre-crisis, non-linear behavior in the crisis, and slow recovery. The non-Bayesian model improves quantitatively on the Bayesian model in matching the extent of the pre-crisis froth.

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SSRN
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Arvind Krishnamurthy
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“Nash-in-Nash” tariff bargaining

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We provide an equilibrium analysis of the efficiency properties of simultaneous bilateral tariff negotiations in a three-country model of international trade. We consider the setting in which discriminatory tariffs are allowed, and we utilize the “Nash-in-Nash” solution concept of Horn and Wolinsky (1988). We allow for a general family of political-economic country welfare functions and assess efficiency relative to these welfare functions. We establish a sense in which the resulting tariffs are inefficient and too low, so that excessive liberalization occurs from the perspective of the three countries.

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Journal of International Economics
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Kyle Bagwell
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