In the past few years it has become almost universally acknowledged by Chinese economists and economic policy advisors that the very low consumption share of its GDP is a major economic vulnerability. Among other things it is the cause of China's excess dependence both on large trade surpluses and on (increasingly) non-productive investment to generate targeted GDP growth rates. But while Beijing has discussed the need to raise the consumption share of GDP since at least 2007, when then-premier Wen Jiabao made his famous "four unbalances" speech, the consumption share of GDP has barely changed. Why is it so difficult for China to raise the consumption share of GDP? 

Join us for the opening of China Week with Keynote by expert Michael Pettis, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace live from Beijing, chaired by Xin Sun, King's College London.

This is a hybrid event. Please select either in-person or online attendance when registering. Registration is required. 

Speakers

Michael Pettis is a Beijing-based senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has been teaching finance at Peking University since 2004. From 2002 to 2004, he also taught at Tsinghua University and, from 1992 to 2001, at Columbia University. Prior to moving to China in 2002, Pettis spent fifteen years on Wall Street where he ran trading and capital markets desks focusing mainly on Latin America. He has published six books, the most recent of which, "Trade Wars are Class Wars" (Yale University Press, 2019), was the 2021 Lionel Gelber Book Prize Winner.

Xin Sun (Chair) is a senior lecturer in Chinese and East Asian Business at the Lau China Institute. He is an expert in political economy, economic policies and government-business relations in China. His work focuses on the interplay between China’s formal and informal institutions and how these types of institution jointly shape economic and policy outcomes as well as business behaviours. He is currently researching land politics and the housing market in China, looking at how informal political practices affect property rights institutions and land use and regulatory behaviours.