Division of Sociology & Chinese Heritage Centre, NTU

cordially invite you to attend the following Public Lecture:

The Future of Growth in China: Fiscal Solutions for Structural Constraints

Speaker: Prof Salvatore Babones, University of Sydney

Date: Friday, 6 November 2015

Time: 3pm

Venue: HSS Conference Room (HSS-05-57)

Abstract

As China approaches middle income status, its rate of economic growth is slowing. In per capita terms, China will soon catch up with peer countries like Brazil, Mexico, and Russia, but will it surpass them? After three decades of rapid growth, China now faces the same kinds of structural constraints that these countries have faced for decades: a stagnant workforce, unequal urbanization, environmental depletion, tax avoidance, capital flight, brain drain, and a reluctance to invest in human infrastructure. These constraints combine to produce a fiscal crisis of the developmental state — a crisis that hit all of these peer countries at similar stages in their development and is likely to hit China before the end of this decade. Contrary to conventional wisdom, neither further economic liberalization nor improved rule of law will alleviate this crisis. The real lesson of endogenous growth theory is that China can only break through the middle income trap through pro-poor structural reforms that require a substantial expansion of the fiscal capacity of the Chinese state.

This presentation is a synthesis of several short articles, most of which can be viewed on the website of Foreign Affairs magazine: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/salvatore-babones

Speaker’s Biography
Salvatore Babones is an associate professor of sociology and social policy at the University of Sydney. He is the author or editor of ten books and more than two dozen academic research papers applying comparative methods to the study of the international political economy. He also writes extensively on international affairs and is a member of Foreign Affairs magazine’s “China Brain Trust.” Salvatore Babones is currently a visiting associate professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.