Will China Fall into a Middle Income Trap? Growth, Inequality and Future Instability
REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED
The problem: Despite the recent robust growth, there is concern that as China moves up the income ladder that its high level of inequality may be a breeding ground for future instability. We are not merely talking about the current (today’s) inequality: the 3:1 one urban to rural inequality in per capita income. More importantly, we are concerned about the implications of today’s human capital inequality between China’s cities and its poor rural areas. There are inequality gaps of 30:1 (matriculation into college); and 8:1 (early childhood education gap; and 4:1 (matriculation into fast-tracked academic high schools).
Is this a concern of development economists from the West? Or, is this something in which China’s policy making, academic and business communities are interested. In fact, China’s leaders—including those at the very top—have recently become extremely interested in understanding if anything in the nature of its economy is setting up the country to be headed on a road that could end up in a middle income growth trap.
China knows a lot about its own economy today. There are two questions that are outstanding and which this conference hopes to answer:
ONE: We are interested in what if, anything the implications of the human capital gaps on the economy and political stability (wending) of one to two decades from now.
TWO: Are there lessons from the rest of the world—yesterday, today and tomorrow—that can help formulate policy solutions to potential barriers to rapid and sustained growth?
Approach: In a one day conference at Stanford, sponsored by FSI and SCID, experts from growth, inequality, development and political economy, academics and policy people from inside and outside of China (and from inside and outside of Stanford) will contribute their knowledge.
Output: A monograph that distills the lessons from the conference, the target audience being China’s top leadership and its academic elite (who act as advisors to China’s top leadership).
This document will seek to put the current economic development process through which China is moving into international perspective. The monograph will be coauthored by Scott Rozelle, Nick Hope, Hongbin Li, Liu Shouying, Cai Fang and others.
CONFERENCE AGENDA
7:45 – 8:30 Breakfast
8:30 – 8:45 Welcome: Nicholas Hope, Director, SCID, and Scott Rozelle, Senior Fellow, APARC, Stanford University
8:45 – 10:15 Panel One
Chinese Growth and Inequality: Past and Present
Moderator: Jean Oi (Stanford)
Presenters: Growth and Income Inequality: T. sicular, Professor, U. Western Ontario
Human Capital Inequality: Li Hongbin, Professor, Tsinghua University
Plenary Discussant: Liu Shouying, Development Research Center, State Council
10:15 – 10:30 Coffee Break
10:30 – 12:30 Panel Two
Chinese Growth and Inequality: Future
Moderator: Xueguang Zhou, Professor, Stanford
Presenters: Emerging Growth Patterns: TBD
Status and Outlook for FDI
Thilo Hanemann, Peterson Institute for International Economics
The Collapse of Rural Education: Scott Rozelle, Stanford
Plenary Discussant: Cai Fang, Development Research Center, State Council
12:30 – 2:00 Lunch Break
2:00 – 3:00 Panel Three, Session I
Lessons from Outside of China for China
Inequality and Stagnation: Mexico
Moderator/Discussant: Beatriz Magaloni, Stanford
Human Capital and Mexico’s Labor Markets:
J. Edward Taylor, Professor, UC Davis
Avoiding Collapse: Brazil
Moderator/Discussant: Martin Carnoy, Stanford
Growth, Equity and Stability: Francisco Ferriera, World Bank
3:00 – 3:15 Coffee Break
3:15 – 5:15 Panel Three, Session II
Growth through Restructuring: South Korea:
Moderator/Discussant: Gi-wook Shin, Professor, Stanford University
Presenter: The Education Hedge and Recovery from Crisis: Kwon Daebong, Professor, Korea University
What lessons should be learned? What policies adopted?
Moderator: Nicholas Hope, Stanford
Discussants: Andrew Walder, Stanford, Paul Cavey, MacQuarrie Securities
5:30 – 6:00Reception
6:00 – 7:30 Dinner, Vidilakas Room, Schwab Center, 680 Serra Street, Stanford
John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Building
366 Galvez Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6015
Scott Rozelle
Encina Hall East, E404
Stanford, CA 94305-6055
Scott Rozelle is the Helen F. Farnsworth Senior Fellow and the co-director of Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research at Stanford University. He received his BS from the University of California, Berkeley, and his MS and PhD from Cornell University. Previously, Rozelle was a professor at the University of California, Davis and an assistant professor in Stanford’s Food Research Institute and department of economics. He currently is a member of several organizations, including the American Economics Association, the International Association for Agricultural Economists, and the Association for Asian Studies. Rozelle also serves on the editorial boards of Economic Development and Cultural Change, Agricultural Economics, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, and the China Economic Review.
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.
Rozelle's papers have been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, American Economic Review, and the Journal of Economic Literature. His book, Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise, was published in 2020 by The University of Chicago Press. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program in which he has close working ties with several Chinese collaborators and policymakers. For the past 20 years, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy; a co-director of the University of California's Agricultural Issues Center; and a member of Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the Center on Food Security and the Environment.
In recognition of his outstanding achievements, Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards, including the Friendship Award in 2008, the highest award given to a non-Chinese by the Premier; and the National Science and Technology Collaboration Award in 2009 for scientific achievement in collaborative research.
