Targets, Interest Rates, and Household Saving in Urban China

Targets, Interest Rates, and Household Saving in Urban China
Author: Mr.Malhar Nabar
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 30
Release: 2011-10-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1463904258

This paper studies a panel of China's provinces over the period 1996-2009 during which urban household saving rates increased from 19 percent of disposable income to 30 percent. It finds that the increase in urban saving rates is negatively associated with the decline in real interest rates over this period. This negative association suggests that Chinese households save with a target level of saving in mind. When the return to saving declines (increases), it becomes more difficult (easier) to meet a target and households increase (lower) their saving out of current disposable income to compensate. The results are robust across specifications and to the inclusion of additional variables. A main policy implication is that an increase in real deposit rates may help lower household saving and boost domestic consumption.

Capitalizing China

Capitalizing China
Author: Joseph P. H. Fan
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2013
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0226237249

La 4e de couverture indique : "Despite a vast accumulation of private capital, China is not embracing capitalism. Deceptively familiar capitalist features disguise the profoundly unfamiliar foundations of "market socialism with Chinese characteristics." The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), by controlling the career advancement of all senior personnel in all regulatory agencies, all state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and virtually all major financial institutions state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and senior Party positions in all but the smallest non-SOE enterprises, retains sole possession of Lenin's Commanding Heights. The chapters in this volume examine China's high savings rate, banking system, financial markets, financial regulations, corporate governance, and public finances; and consider policy alternatives the CCP might consider if its goal is China's elevation into the ranks of high income countries."

China’s High Savings: Drivers, Prospects, and Policies

China’s High Savings: Drivers, Prospects, and Policies
Author: Ms.Longmei Zhang
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 38
Release: 2018-12-11
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484388771

China’s high national savings rate—one of the highest in the world—is at the heart of its external/internal imbalances. High savings finance elevated investment when held domestically, or lead to large external imbalances when they flow abroad. Today, high savings mostly emanate from the household sector, resulting from demographic changes induced by the one-child policy and the transformation of the social safety net and job security that occured during the transition from planned to market economy. Housing reform and rising income inequality also contribute to higher savings. Moving forward, demographic changes will put downward pressure on savings. Policy efforts in strengthening the social safety net and reducing income inequality are also needed to reduce savings further and boost consumption.

China's Economy in Transition

China's Economy in Transition
Author: Mr.Anoop Singh
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2013-11-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1484321936

China's current account surplus has declined to around one-quarter the peak reached before the global financial crisis. While this is a major reduction in China's external imbalance, it has not been accompanied by a decisive shift toward consumption-based growth. Instead, the compression in its external surplus has been accomplished through increasing fixed investment so that it is now an even higher share of China's national economy. This increasing reliance on fixed investment as the main driver of China's growth raises questions about the durability of the compression in the external surplus and the sustainability of the current growth model that has had unprecedented success in lifting about 500 million people out of poverty over the last three decades. This volume examines various aspects of the rebalancing process underway in China, highlighting policy lessons for achieving stable, sustainable, and inclusive growth.

Finance & Development, September 2012

Finance & Development, September 2012
Author: International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 60
Release: 2012-11-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1475504764

Technology is generating a global convergence. A "big bang" of information—and education as well—is improving human lives. And with global interconnectivity growing by leaps and bounds, we are all witness to a rapid spread of information and ideas. But, as we have seen from the prolonged global financial crisis, our interconnectedness carries grave risks as well as benefits. This issue of F&D looks at different aspects of interconnectedness, globally and in Asia. • Brookings VP Kemal Devis presents the three fundamental trends in the global economy affecting the balance between east and west in "World Economy: Convergence, Interdependence, and Divergence." • In "Financial Regionalism," Akihiro Kawai and Domenico Lombardi tell us how regional arrangements are helping global financial stability. • In "Migration Meets Slow Growth," Migration Policy Institute president Demetrios Papademetriou examines how the global movement of workers will change as the economic crisis continues in advanced economies. • "Caught in the Web" explains new ways of looking at financial interconnections in a globalized world. • IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde provides her take on the benefits of integration and the risks of fragmentation in "Straight Talk." Also in this issue, we take a closer look at interconnectedness across Asia as we explore how trade across the region is affected by China's falling trade surplus, how India and China might learn from each others' success, and what Myanmar's reintegration into the global economy means for its people. F&D's People in Economics series profiles Justin Yifu Lin, first developing country World Bank economist, and the Back to Basics series explains the origins and evolution of money.

Financial Distortions in China

Financial Distortions in China
Author: Diego Anzoategui
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 31
Release: 2015-12-24
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1513582798

Widespread implicit guarantees and interest ceilings were major distortions in China’s financial system, contributing to a misallocation of resources. We analyze the impact of removing such frictions in a general equilibrium setting. The results show that comprehensive reforms generate better outcomes than partial ones: removing the deposit rate ceiling alone increases output, but the efficiency of capital allocation does not improve. Removing implicit guarantees improves output through lower cost of capital for private companies and better resource allocation.

Stumbling Giant

Stumbling Giant
Author: Timothy Beardson
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 474
Release: 2013-05-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 030016551X

“A thoughtful reconsideration of China’s actual place in the new world order, based on reality rather than fanciful speculation.” —Kirkus Reviews Can anything prevent China surpassing the United States and becoming the world’s top superpower? While predictions that China’s rise to global supremacy is a near-certainty have resulted in this belief becoming almost conventional wisdom, this book boldly counters such widely held assumptions. Investment strategist Timothy Beardson brings to light the daunting array of challenges that today confront China, as well as the inadequacy of the policy responses. Threats to China come on many fronts, Beardson shows, and by their number and sheer weight these problems will thwart any ambition to become the world’s “Number One power.” Drawing on extensive research and experience living and working in Asia over the last 35 years, the author spells out China’s situation: an inexorable demographic future of a shrinking labor force, relentless aging, extreme gender disparity, and even a falling population. Also, the nation faces social instability, a devastated environment, a predominantly low-tech economy with inadequate innovation, the absence of an effective welfare safety net, an ossified governance structure, and radical Islam lurking at the borders. Beardson’s nuanced, firsthand look at China acknowledges its historic achievements while tempering predictions of its imminent hegemony with a no-nonsense dose of reality.

Chronicle of a Decline Foretold

Chronicle of a Decline Foretold
Author: Ms.Mitali Das
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 21
Release: 2013-01-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1475548249

China is on the eve of a demographic shift that will have profound consequences on its economic and social landscape. Within a few years the working age population will reach a historical peak, and then begin a precipitous decline. This fact, along with anecdotes of rapidly rising migrant wages and episodic labor shortages, has raised questions about whether China is poised to cross the Lewis Turning Point, a point at which it would move from a vast supply of low-cost workers to a labor shortage economy. Crossing this threshold will have far-reaching implications for both China and the rest of the world. This paper empirically assesses when the transition to a labor shortage economy is likely to occur. Our central result is that on current trends, the Lewis Turning Point will emerge between 2020 and 2025. Alternative scenarios—with higher fertility, greater labor participation rates, financial reform or higher productivity—may peripherally delay or accelerate the onset of the turning point, but demographics will be the dominant force driving the depletion of surplus labor.

Global Finance After the Crisis

Global Finance After the Crisis
Author: Richard A. Ile
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1781951861

ÔRichard Iley and Mervyn Lewis have written an extremely useful book on the global economy since the Western financial crisis. Well-written, well-informed and easily accessible to non-economists, it offers much good sense about many questions, from the future of the renminbi to that of the United States. They wisely urge that, as ChinaÕs rise continues, the United States should engage with China rather than resist it. This is a book full of good judgement that deserves a wide readership.Õ Ð Martin Jacques, author, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order ÔThe interplay between the macro-economic imbalances, notably in the relationship between the USA and China, and the more micro-economic shortcomings of the WestÕs financial systems, particularly the lax regulation, forms the centre-piece of this excellently written book. In the disputes about the relative culpability of China and the USA for current macro-economic problems, they tend to support the Chinese arguments, and give well-considered arguments for so doing. This book provides an excellent, clear, and at times provocative, assessment of the course of the macro-monetary problems of the world since the Ògreat recessionÓ struck.Õ Ð Charles A.E. Goodhart, London School of Economics, UK This thought-provoking book addresses challenging questions raised in light of the aftermath of the global financial crisis that saw an accelerated rise in the economic growth of China and other emerging market economies, while the US, Japan and Europe have laboured under the great recession. The authors examine global post-crisis reordering in a long-run context, identify five fundamental flaws in global bank business models and document the explosion of gross capital flows. They tackle difficult-to-answer lines of enquiry such as: can zero interest rates and quantitative easing lift the advanced world back to growth, or will they be dragged down by the overhang of debt? Might costs on savers, retirees and distortions to the pattern of global financing render zero rates counter-productive? What issues face the BRICs? Could ÔChina as number oneÕ see the renminbi soon challenge the dollar and the euro as a major international currency? Providing a detailed analysis of the post-crisis world and the issues posed by the rise of China and emerging market economies relative to developed countries, this book will prove a stimulating account for academics, students and researchers in the fields of economics, money, finance and banking, and world trade. Bank and market economists as well as policymakers based in central banks, governments and think-tanks will also find this book to be an invaluable reference tool.

The Future of Asian Finance

The Future of Asian Finance
Author: Ms.Ratna Sahay
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2015-08-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1498317197

Asia’s financial systems proved resilient to the shocks from the global financial crisis, and growth since then has been strong. But new challenges have emerged in the region’s economies, including demographics and aging, the need to diversify from bank-dominated systems, urbanization and infrastructure, and the rebalancing of economic activity. This book takes stock of the challenges facing the region today and how economic systems in Asia’s advanced and emerging market economies compare with the rest of the world.