International pressure to revalue China’s currency stems in part from the expectation that rapid economic growth should be associated with an underlying real exchange rate appreciation. This hinges on the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis, which sees growth as stemming from improvements in traded...

Despite its key contribution to global economic growth through the 1960s and 1970s, in recent decades the rise of China has seen the importance of Japan recede from the public discourse. This is notwithstanding its continuing key role as global investor and trading partner. Yet this role has...

China’s net saving abroad has been slowing and will slow further as its households consume more, its corporations save less and its central and provincial governments continue in combined deficit. These changes are associated with weaker global economic performance but, importantly, they stem...

While there is much controversy over exchange rates, particularly between the large, advanced economic regions, arguably more important real exchange rates receive comparatively little attention. Traditionally, these are seen to be influenced in the long run by forces that return economies to...

East Asian, and primarily Chinese and Japanese, excess saving has been comparatively large and controversial since the 1980s. That it has contributed to the decline in the global “natural” rate of interest is consistent with Bernanke’s much debated “savings glut” hypothesis for the...

China’s size limits its capacity to source further growth from exports and so the inevitable turn inward is in progress. Thus far, key home policy drivers have been fiscal expansion and public investment, though provincial indebtedness will constrain these in future and growth will be driven...