The main goal of this course is to understand the fundamental characteristics of East Asian economies, their remarkable long-term growth performance as well as the recent financial crisis. We study education, equity, and export-drive industrial policy as engines of growth. We also investigate if the financial sector is actually a foible point of those countries.

This course introduces the economic development and reform of China. Our focus is mainly on the period from 1978 till now. During this span , China is the second largest country in the world. How has the economy of China grown so fast? What has China achieved in other dimensions of development ? These are the questions we are trying to answer in this course.

The textbook for this class is China’s Great Economic Transformation edited by Brandt and Rawski (Cambridge University Press, 2008). The book collects the research outputs of leading researchers on Chinese economy. Although most of the original research outputs were highly technical, the text has made huge effort to re-write them in more friendly way. Supplemented with other materials, this textbook should be able to help us gain much deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the driving forces of Chinese economy.