Author Archives: mkevane

Source: Fletcher, Public Libraries in America, 2nd ed. (1894), 154.

For several years China has run current account surpluses that have been widely seen as the most serious source of global imbalances on the surplus side. Its exchange rate intervention limited appreciation of the currency and led to a buildup … Continue reading →

The other key fuel for kleptocracy is a copious supply of domestic savings to loot. The reason Chinese savings levels are so high is the one-child policy.In most developing countries the way that people save is they have multiple children … Continue reading →

The CBRC has ordered major State-owned lenders to assess their loan quality as economic growth slows and more loans turn sour, the Shanghai-based China Business News reported on Monday.The regulator ordered the top five lenders – Industrial and Commercial Bank … Continue reading →

The Chinese economy is in the midst of a gradual slowdown. A weaker global economic environment and tighter domestic policies combined to slow gross domestic product GDP growth from 10.4 percent in 2010 to 9.2 percent in 2011. Slow growth … Continue reading →

Official IMF assessment of the major risks to China’s economy, from press conference yesterday: Over the past several years, China has made significant progress in reducing external imbalances. The current account surplus, for example, has declined sharply from 10 percent … Continue reading →

Louis-Gustave Binger est le grand-père maternel de l’écrivain Roland Barthes, qui décrit ainsi son aïeul : «Dans sa vieillesse, il s’ennuyait. Toujours assis à sa table avant l’heure (bien que cette heure fût sans cesse avancée), il vivait de plus … Continue reading →

Time and again, China has defied the skeptics who claimed its unique mixed model—an ever-more market-driven economy dominated by an authoritarian Communist Party and behemoth state-owned enterprises—could not possibly endure. Today, those voices are louder than ever. Michael Pettis, a … Continue reading →

“Chinese Premier Blasts Banks” Are China’s banks too big to be broken up?: Chinese Premier Blasts Banks, by Dinny McMahon, Lingling Wei, and Andrew Galbraith, WSJ: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told a national audience on Tuesday that China’s state-controlled banks … Continue reading →

Fed Watch: Cash Exiting China Tim Duy: Something that I have thinking about for a few weeks – and was reminded of reading Ryan Avent this morning – is the series of pieces at FT alphaville regarding the outflow of … Continue reading →

The discussion in China on capital account liberalisation, a major precondition for internationalising the renminbi, has intensified after the PBC released a new blueprint for accelerating the opening up of China’s financial sector. A senior central bank official gave an … Continue reading →

After years of stagnation on the economic policy reform front, there was a rush of Chinese economic-reform proposals in early 2012. The pro-state government led by Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao is on its way out, to be replaced by … Continue reading →

Consider this example:[1] state A passes a bill offering tax deduction to employers providing health insurance. Let us also consider that in the year after the bill passed (year 2) the percentage of firms offering health insurance increased by 30% … Continue reading →

Data from the People’s Bank of China showed that in the first five months of 2012, the value of the yuan fell more frequently than any year since 2005 when the country launched exchange rate reform. Of 96 trading days … Continue reading →

Last week, a Chinese central bank official said the yuan’s exchange rate with the dollar “isn’t clearly undervalued.” Economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey beg to differ. Twenty-eight of 41 economists who responded to the question said … Continue reading →

                    Wish I could have been there… looks fun!    

BEIJING — The stock market played a strange trick on the Chinese Communist Party on Monday.Whether a cosmic joke or coincidence – or as some wags suggested, an act of God – the Shanghai stock market index fell 64.89 points … Continue reading →