The Centre for China Studies, the Confucius Institute and the School of Economics jointly invite you to attend the seminar: Understanding Patterns of Growth and Equity in the PRC, given by Professor Minquan Liu. This will be an opportunity for LTU scholars to exchange ideas with their peers from overseas.

 

Venue: HUED 101, Melbourne Campus

 

There are likely to be many factors which have together shaped the current pattern of growth and equity in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Among them are the foundations laid in the pre-1978 era, especially in respect of land-related institutional reforms and social sector investments. These factors successfully complemented the subsequent export and foreign direct investment promotion strategies the PRC followed in the post-1978 years. However, given the large size of the PRC, while these strategies have helped to kick-start its economic take-off, the long-run growth of the country cannot depend on it. It will be important for the PRC in the forthcoming decades to expand its own domestic demand and renew social sector investments. Among other things, it will need to improve on its current income distributions. In particular, as well as wage increases, it will be important for the PRC to expand its social protection programs. 

About the speaker

Minquan Liu is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Development Economics, School of Economics, Peking University, and the Founding Director of the Center for Human and Economic Development Studies (CHEDS), Peking University. Before he joined Peking University in 2005, he was Professor of Economics at Hopkins-Nanjing Center, Johns Hopkins University, and a lecturer and research fellow with the University of Leicester and the University of Cambridge in the UK, respecitvely. His recent research has focused on human development (principally health, education, environment, and poverty eradication) in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and in other East and Southeast Asian economies. His most recent major work was a United Nations Development Programme human development research report: Human Development in East and Southeast Asian Economies: 1990-2010, which reviewed progress in human development in these economies during the period. He has also recently contributed to United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs top-level consultations on poverty eradication and the post-2015 agenda. He has led many important research projects on rural development, rural finance, health, education, the environment and poverty in the PRC, and has published articles in leading PRC and international journals addressing these issues.
 
Professor Liu received an M.Phil from the University of Cambridge, and a D.Phil from the University of Oxford. He is currently on leave from Peking University and has joined the Asia Development Bank Institute in Tokyo as a Senior Research Fellow.