Industrial policies are widely credited with upgrading the economic structure of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and advancing its economy towards and beyond the current technological frontier. Yet the data suggest that the PRC's economy-wide investment patterns—with investment embodying...

Investment statistics of the People's Republic of China are a source of many puzzles. Some investment data are of dubious quality, while the particular concepts of investment and their changing definitions over time are often poorly understood. Fixed asset investment, a remnant of the planned...

This paper has two objectives. (i) Assess the availability and the quality of the data series necessary to construct productivity measures for the Chinese economy. (ii) Produce a set of productivity statistics that can be integrated into the existing set of OECD productivity indicators and that...

Alwyn Young (2000) provided evidence for distortions begetting distortions in a partially reformed economy by examining barriers to inter-provincial trade in China. His findings of increasing barriers to inter-provincial trade are based on five arguments. This paper critically examines each of...

Until the late 1990s, the rapid development of rural cooperative funds as semi-formal financial institutions in the countryside attracted little attention. In many provinces, these funds took over large swathes of rural finance, before the State Council in March 1999 issued a secret decree...

For the past nearly forty years, China has experienced average annual real GDP growth of close to ten percent, much of it driven by investment and capital accumulation. By 2014, gross capital formation had reached 46 percent of aggregate expenditures. This paper documents the role of investment...

The investment-intensive growth model of the People's Republic of China (PRC) is often viewed as state-driven and ultimately unsustainable. But largely unnoticed, a shift has taken place. This paper examines the changes in investment patterns since 2003 and the potential impact of industrial...

Capital estimates are widely used in economic growth and productivity studies, for profitability considerations and wealth accounting exercises. Yet the calculation of “capital” frequently receives only cursory attention, despite the challenges posed by conceptual difficulties, the...

Capital estimates are widely used in economic growth and productivity studies, for profitability considerations and wealth accounting exercises. Yet the calculation of “capital” frequently receives only cursory attention, despite the challenges posed by conceptual difficulties, the...