The 6th NSE Summer School Closed with Success

From July 5th to 8th, 2019, the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University (INSE) held the 6th New Structural Economics Summer School in Langrun Garden, Peking University. The Summer School consists a three-day course lecture relating to New Structure Economics and a one-day interview for admission to the PhD Program. Prof. Justin Yifu Lin, Dean of INSE, addressed the keynote speeches. Distinguished economists Prof. Jiandong Ju and Dr. Célestin Monga gave lectures on China-US trade dispute and job creation respectively. The faculty of INSE gave lectures on sub-field of New Structural Economics academic researches, which include five modules: Macro and Growth, Trade and Urban, Finance and Development, Other Applications of NSE and Methodology. The member of the policy practice team introduced the NSE application in practice in the field of domestic think tank, international development and cooperation, enterprise development. In total 32 outstanding undergraduate and graduate students attended the Summer School.

On July 5th, Prof. Justin Yifu Lin delivered the welcome speech at the opening ceremony chaired by Prof. Yong Wang, Academic Deputy Dean of the INSE. Prof. Lin pointed out in his opening speech that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the May Fourth Movement. During the past 100 years, China, once one of the poorest countries in the world, has become the world's second largest economy, and is gaining more influences in the world arena. Yet China still face many challenges on the road to realizing the great national rejuvenation. The well-founded study of China’s past development experiences would be of great implication to deal with China’s future challenges, and contribute to the well-being of mankind by helping other developing countries to realize their industrialization and modernization process. He wished that the students could grasp a better understanding of economic research in this three-day Summer School, and set an aim to make innovations and promote the development of this discipline.

Prof. Justin Yifu Lin then gave a keynote speech entitled New Structural Economics: A Structural Revolution to Neo-classical Economics, which consists four parts: why rethinking the development economics and proposing New Structural Economics; the theoretical foundation of New Structural Economics; why NSE is the structural revolution to neo-classical economics; conclusion and the direction of future researches.

In the lecture on module of Macro and Growth, Associate Professor Yong Wang and Assistant Professor Junjie Xia gave a lecture on Macroeconomics Through the Lens of New Structural Economics. Prof. Wang pointed out that structures deserve more attention in the research field of macro and growth and the key difference between NSE and the existing literature of structural change is that NSE highlights the endowment-driven mechanism instead of other mechanisms of structural changes. Assistant Professor Junjie Xia introduced the research agenda on industrial transformation, industrial policy and state-owned enterprise (SOE).

After the first-day lectures, the faculty held an interaction and Q&A session with the students during the dinner (buffet).

On July 6th, in the lecture on International Trade and Urban, Assistant Professor Xin Wang gave a lecture entitled Open Economy and New Structural Economics. She introduced the definition of comparative advantages and the gains from trade as well as two examples of research questions to be explored: trade and structure change and development strategy and international capital flows. Assistant Professor Shenzhen Jiang presented a paper on Infrastructure, Urbanization and Housing Market, which is to answer why Chinese government can finance such huge and sustainable infrastructure investment and where does the money come from.

Prof. Jiandong Ju, Unigroup Chair Professor at the PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University, delivered a lecture on Academic Analysis of China-US Trade Dispute. He presented researches on three topics, i.e., Asian community and a tri-polar global economic governance, theory and practice on bilateral conflict and the long-term impacts of China-US trade disputes.

In the session addressed by the Domestic Think Tank team, Dr. Bin Huang, Senior Research Fellow and Director of Department of Domestic Think Tank at INSE, gave a lecture themed Development Strategies of Local Government and Industrial Upgrading. He introduced how a facilitating government could use the NSE Growth Identification and Facilitating Framework (GIFF) and Classification of Five Types of Industries to explore the path to industrial upgrading. Dr. Li Hui, Post-doctoral Researcher, presented her research on comparative advantage, viability and poverty alleviation by industry fostering, and introduced three cases of agricultural industries, i.e., potato industry in Gansu Province, vegetable industry in Shandong Province and crayfish industry in Hubei Province, that have successfully lifted people out of poverty in these regions.

In the lecture on Finance and Development, Prof. Jiajun Xu, Assistant Professor and Executive Deputy Dean of INSE, and Dr. Zirong Yang, Invited Researcher at INSE and Assistant Researcher at Chinese Academy of Social Science, introduced the core research topics, current research and future blueprint on New Structural Finance. 

In the lecture on Enterprise Development, Dr. Changzheng Liu, Senior Operations Expert and Director of Enterprise Development Department gave a speech entitled Transformation and Development of Automobile Industry in China from the Perspective of New Structural Economics. Dr. Qiuyun Zhao, Post-doctoral Researcher, gave a speech on Academic Thoughts, Industrial Revolution, Enterprise Development and the Theoretical Construction of New Structural Economics.

On July 7th, the International Think Tank team of INSE delivered a lecture on NSE application in the international development and cooperation. Dr. Jia Yu, Senior Operations Expert and Director of Department of International Development and Cooperation, introduced “Knowing and Achieving Being One” working philosophy and the research and project implementation practices of the International Think Tank team. Ms. Chenmei Li, Project Research Specialist, introduced the country development projects conducted by the International Think Tank Team. She used the projects in Benin and Uzbekistan to illustrate how to lever SEZs to generate structural economic transformation for developing countries. Dr. Wen Chen, Researcher, and Mr. Jiewei Li, Project Research Specialist, gave a joint lecture themed The Relocation of Chinese Labor-Intensive Manufacturing Firms: Facts and Potentials. They introduced the ongoing researches on issues such as theoretical underpinning of the Flying-Geese Paradigm, the Changing pattern of Chinese labor-intensive manufacturing and China’s outwards FDI and well as findings based on the firm-level survey conducted by INSE in 2017. Ms. Xinyue Wu, Project Research Specialist, gave a brief introduction on Development Finance Under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Dr. Célestin Monga, Vice President and Chief Economist of African Development Bank, gave a lecture themed Job Creation in the New Structural Economics Framework. He first addressed some conceptual issues regarding unemployment and employment, followed by an introduction of the traditional, ineffective remedies to unemployment. Then elaborated on the NSE approaches in job creation, which consists three parts: seizing the new dividends of globalization, theoretical framework for labor arbitrage and policy framework. 

In the lecture on Other Application of NSE, Associate Professor Jianye Yan presented a working paper themed Incentives and “Policy Burden” in SOE Reform of China. The paper investigated the reason for SOE reforms and proposed a theoretical mechanism to model the incentive behind the reforms. This paper was a typical attempt in the Module D research field (Other Application of NSE), which consisted of contract theory/mechanism design with the perspectives of NSE. 

In the lecture on Methodology of NSE, Prof. Yong Wang introduced the general principle of New Structure Economics, Prof. Shenzhe Jiang and Prof. Bo Hu introduced the math preparation, requirement and suggestion for the PhD program of NSE. Dr. Jie Zheng, Post-doctoral Researcher (NSE textbook compilation track), gave a brief introduction to The Introduction of New Structural Economics and other upcoming NSE textbooks.

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On the closing ceremony, Prof. Lin called for joint effort to promote innovation of economics and facilitate the global economic development again and issued a graduation certificate to each student. He also thanked the volunteers and staff for making the success of the Summer School a reality.

On July 8th, the participating students had interviews for the admission to the PhD program. May them have the chance to embark on a wonderful journey of exploration in economics and academic excellence.

Author：Yanru Ye