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China Economics Blog
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A place to find news, observations, statistics, information on undergraduate (BSc and BA economics) postgraduate (MSc economics) and academic analysis of important issues for China's economy including economic growth, inequality, stockmarket, shares, exch
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The pungent smell of money
What has been the best investment in China this year? Gold? Copper? No, the humble garlic bulb. Why? Because of swine flu.Simple.What is more sinister is the rumours of "bulb hording" - the Chinese are learning about the dark arts of capitalism ver...
50 best blogs about China
Another one of those "50 best something or other lists".This one is on China and includes China Economics Blog.Some useful sites that might be worth checking out.50 Best Blogs to Learn All About China[Onlien Schools]Over the past few decades China ha...
China Trip
Apologies yet again for some sluggish posting. This time, ironically, the lack of posts is due to the fact that I was actually working in China. Sadly, this blog is still blocked in the middle kingdom.This is a shame as I have a lot of information ...
Where I will not be going to cure my blogging addiction
The Guangxi Qihuang Survival Training Camp sounds like a pretty scary place. There must be an easier way to ween myself off the internet.Electoshock treatment also sounds a rather drastic method for getting teenagers to stop surfing the net.The econ...
Unrest in Xinjiang - live discussion
From the inbox:The Director of George Washington University’s International Development Studies Program and Cultural Anthropologist Sean Roberts will be available to discuss the growing unrest in Uighur. He has studied the region for 20 years.The l...
Why Do Institutions of Higher Education Reward Research While Selling Education?"
One of the initial motivations for this blog was to ensure that prospective Chinese students wanting to study abroad made sure that they invested wisely in the highest quality education at the top Universities. To that end, the side bar on the right ...
UK's ONS gets retail figures wrong
OK, hands up. I have criticised the reliability of Chinese data regularly on this blog to the extent that I do not believe a lot of the published Chinese macro data.Interestingly, I did wonder about the robust UK retail numbers that were coming out ...
Financial news operations banned in China
I hope this does not mean China finance related blogs will be banned as well - opps I forget - China Economics Blog has been banned shortly after its inception although I lose track whether "blogger" blogs are banned or not these days.China bans fore...
China Economics Blog in at number 2
I like blog rankings where China Economics Blog does well. The recent Bankling blog provides just such a ranking.Ranking posts are a cheap way of getting extra hits and any good SEO blog has this as a top tip for getting known. Even so, we are happ...
How China views the world?
One has to laugh at the recent Economist front cover:The people over at Strange Maps discuss the finer details of the map. For example, they write:In the ocean immediately beyond the city are a few islands of particular interest to China:* Japan: th...
China statistics - to believe or not to believe?
I have stated on numerous occasions that I do not trust the statistics coming out of China and for good reason.It appears other economists share my skepticism. So is China in recession or not? To get 2 quarters of NEGATIVE growth would be required. ...
HSBC and its China bank stakes
HSBC is in trouble. Its share price is down from over 800p in October 2008 to around 500p today with a market capitalisation of around £60.8bn.The cause of a lot of its current problems was the disastrous purchase HFC - a US sub-prime lender that h...
Internet content crackdown continues
Google continues to get a pounding in China as do many other content providers as China renews its attacks.If the sole aim is to remove porn then there can be few complaints (except from the billion or so that would undoubtedly access said material)....
The future is "Shanzhai" - faking it for real
A recent article in the People's Daily Online reminded me of a recent experience in China. On numerous occasions I was offered a fake iphone. Given the technical quality of this product it amazed me that such an item could be faked in the sense tha...
China Blog Awards
Chinalyst are again running their China blog of the year award.Click here to vote.VOTEI have no chance of winning (sob, sob) but it is nice to be nominated. A top half finish would be nice though.. ...
Online money in China - 20% tax?
The ban on Chinese making money from online games was always difficult to enforce. Cash poor, time rich Chinese could build up "characters" and sell them on to cash rich, time short western players who wanted to take a short-cut to the top.Making it...
Honey trapped in China
A great story that involves sex, Gordon Brown, spying and government officials. I wonder who qualifies to be trapped in this manner? Do mediocre economists count?This could have of course simply been a common theft but what about those hallmarks...G...
Bloggers and anti-bloggers
Last month Business Week published an interesting article on the corporate war against disgruntled bloggers. This article shows the power of the blog and forums to cause corporate embarrassment and to hit profits and why the corporations are fightin...
Reith Lectures - Chinese vistas
BBC Radio 4 present a series of lectures on China by Professor Jonathan Spence.Highly recommended listening (pod casts available) for those interested in China.Reith Lectures - Chinese VistasLecture 1:Chinese Vistas: In a lecture recorded at the Brit...
"Wrong number": On the reliability of Chinese Data
Following on the heals of the last post and thanks to Chinalawblog for the pointer.As an economist who works with large amounts of Chinese data this issue has arisen many many times without a satisfactory solution. The Economist discusses this issue...
Being foreign in China
The consistently good "Silk Road International Blog" has an excellent post on what it means to be foreign in China recently.From a purely economic standpoint China needs to be careful - whilst they may be big enough to go it alone now a mass exodus o...
China's economic development in pictures
This month the National Geographic has a "China Special". The photographs are always of the very highest quality and the story is a good one.There is a surprising amount of economics in the text and correctly so.China's Journey [National Geographic]...
New book: "Debating China's Exchange Rate Policy"
Given the seemingly endless posts on whether China will revalue or not on other China websites those interested would do well to buy this book.Debating China's Exchange Rate Policyedited by Morris Goldstein and Nicholas R. Lardy China's exchange rate...
Are There Lessons for Africa from China's Success Against Poverty?
A recent World Bank working paper considers the differences and similarities between China and Africa and how the former managed to take millions out of poverty and the latter did not.The key line for me from the abstract is in bold and is certainly ...
Robots to replace the "unskilled"
China has expanded on the back of export driven growth with markets won through low cost production. Across the water Japan has a relative abundance of skilled labour but a relative shortage of unskilled workers.Trade solves this problem. However, ...
THE on University Rankings - should rankings be trusted?
This blog has covered University rankings extensively as it is important to pick your University very carefully given the increasing costs of higher education.University ranking ARE growing in influence. Is this a good thing? On one level it is impo...
China's obsession with cars
In another example of the West attempting to prevent China and India enjoying the trappings of capitalism and growth, China and India and urged to avoid copying the West's obsession with fast and/or large cars.As with global warming in general the se...
China: the NEW Master of the Universe
Standard over the top Daily Mail article but it makes for interesting reading:Why China is the REAL master of the universe [Freerepublic.com]Cecil Rhodes, the businessman-imperialist of Africa, the creator of Rhodesia, suffered no flicker of doubt ab...
"Reds in the bed": Chinese sleeper spy in the US
I admit that the link to economics is tenuous but this is a great story nonetheless.After all the spying is related to technology with obvious economic implications.Such stories should not be that surprising. Why would China not indulge in a little ...
Virginity loss and academic performance
As this blog has a number of student readers the following paper might be of interest.It appears that the negative effect of sex on academic performance is not as high as previously expected but is worse for males. Conclusion: if you want to do well...
