After impressive growth of about 10% per annum for three decades, China's visible signs of economic slowdown since 2008 have been subject to much contention. What causes the deceleration? What should we expect in an era of China's 6% growth? This book answers these questions in three parts. Although it is widely accepted that China can hardly continue its high-speed growth model, estimations for its future growth potential differ greatly. The first part of this book predicts China's growth to 2050, which considers both cross-country historical experiences and China's own demographic structure and employment participation features. In the second part, the book offers a comprehensive estimation of China's national and provincial total factor productivity (TFP) over the period of 1978 to 2014 based on comparable data. It then analyzes the causes of China's economic slowdown from a productivity point of view. Finally, this book correspondingly outlines policy recommendations, including supply-side structural reform and macroeconomic policy frameworks, to effectively address the issue of decline in both labor and labor productivity growth. This book will attract scholars and students of economics and China's economic studies.

China’s growth potential has become a hotly debated topic as the economy has reached an income level susceptible to the “middle-income trap” and financial vulnerabilities are mounting after years of rapid credit expansion. However, the existing literature has largely focused on macro level aggregates, which are ill suited to understanding China’s significant structural transformation and its impact on economic growth. To fill the gap, this paper takes a deep dive into China’s convergence progress in 38 industrial sectors and 11 services sectors, examines past sectoral transitions, and predicts future shifts. We find that China’s productivity convergence remains at an early stage, with the industrial sector more advanced than services. Large variations exist among subsectors, with high-tech industrial sectors, in particular the ICT sector, lagging low-tech sectors. Going forward, ample room remains for further convergence, but the shrinking distance to the frontier, the structural shift from industry to services, and demographic changes will put sustained downward pressure on growth, which could slow to 5 percent by 2025 and 4 percent by 2030. Digitalization, SOE reform, and services sector opening up could be three major forces boosting future growth, while the risks of a financial crisis and a reversal in global integration in trade and technology could slow the pace of convergence.

This book addresses the rising productivity gap between the global frontier and other firms, and identifies a number of structural impediments constraining business start-ups, knowledge diffusion and resource allocation (such as barriers to up-scaling and relatively high rates of skill mismatch).

After impressive growth of about 10% per annum for three decades, China's visible signs of economic slowdown since 2008 have been subject to much contention. What causes the deceleration? What should we expect in an era of China's 6% growth? This book answers these questions in three parts. Although it is widely accepted that China can hardly continue its high-speed growth model, estimations for its future growth potential differ greatly. The first part of this book predicts China's growth to 2050, which considers both cross-country historical experiences and China's own demographic structure and employment participation features. In the second part, the book offers a comprehensive estimation of China's national and provincial total factor productivity (TFP) over the period of 1978 to 2014 based on comparable data. It then analyzes the causes of China's economic slowdown from a productivity point of view. Finally, this book correspondingly outlines policy recommendations, including supply-side structural reform and macroeconomic policy frameworks, to effectively address the issue of decline in both labor and labor productivity growth. This book will attract scholars and students of economics and China's economic studies.

The Routledge Handbook of Industry and Development is a global overview of industrialisation. Each chapter will provide readers with contemporary insights into this this essential aspect of economic development. Industrialisation has been at the forefront of discussion on economic development since the earliest days of development economics. But over the last fifty years, the manufacturing sectors of different countries and regions have grown at strikingly different rates. In 1960 developing countries took a very small share of global manufacturing production. Today the position had changed radically with fast growth of manufacturing in many parts of what was originally the developing world, particularly in China and the rest of East Asia. On the other hand, countries in Africa and parts of Latin America have been largely left behind by this process of industrialisation. This volume aims to illuminate this uneven development and takes stock of the current issues that hinder and support industrialisation in low and middle income economies. This Handbook is a collection of chapters on different aspects of industrialisation experience in a range of countries. Key themes include, the role of manufacturing in growth, the nature of structural change at different stages of development, the role of manufacturing in employment creation, alternative options for trade and industrial policy, the key role of technology and technical change, and the impact of globalisation and the spread of global value chains and foreign direct investment on prospects for industrialisation. Several chapters discuss individual country experiences with examples from India, Mexico, South Africa and Tanzania, as well as an overview of African industrialisation. This authoritative Handbook will be a key reference source for those studying or wishing to understand contemporary economic development. Offering inspiration and direction for future research, this landmark volume will be of crucial importance to all development economics scholars and researchers.

"China’s growth potential has become a hotly debated topic as the economy has reached an income level susceptible to the “middle-income trap” and financial vulnerabilities are mounting after years of rapid credit expansion. However, the existing literature has largely focused on macro level aggregates, which are ill suited to understanding China’s significant structural transformation and its impact on economic growth. To fill the gap, this paper takes a deep dive into China’s convergence progress in 38 industrial sectors and 11 services sectors, examines past sectoral transitions, and predicts future shifts. The authors find that China’s productivity convergence remains at an early stage, with the industrial sector more advanced than services. Large variations exist among subsectors, with high-tech industrial sectors, in particular the ICT sector, lagging low-tech sectors. Going forward, ample room remains for further convergence, but the shrinking distance to the frontier, the structural shift from industry to services, and demographic changes will put sustained downward pressure on growth, which could slow to 5 percent by 2025 and 4 percent by 2030. Digitalization, SOE reform, and services sector opening up could be three major forces boosting future growth, while the risks of a financial crisis and a reversal in global integration in trade and technology could slow the pace of convergence."--Abstract.