Professor John Whalley talk about

 Professor John Whalley talk about
me in his office last week from the University of Western Ontario and Professor of well-known economist Professor John Whalley meet again, our conversation involved the cooperation of the two centers, also exchanged on the global imbalances and China's current economic situation, interesting point of view. John Whalley is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Academy of Sciences, the Econometric Society, foreign academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) researchers, the European Economic Advisors CESifo Global Economic Research Director, Canadian Centre for Global Governance Innovation (CIGI), chief researcher. Computable General Equilibrium Model of the main founders, international trade, computable general economic equilibrium, public economics and development economics, a senior research professor, served as The World Economy magazine editor in chief.
More recently, young Chinese Economist has organized a study of the ocean on the Chinese economy written dialogue. activity is the cause of Professor John Whalley numerical simulation of laboratory work in its Chinese scholars one day seminars, when some domestic scholars draft order to see this conversation, the proposed order issued out of the conversation. Whalley, Professor of China for fear of their own incomplete understanding of economics, he suggested, and he invited a number of familiar to one of famous Chinese scholars to participate. The following are remarks made by Professor John Whalley, and I was invited to write a brief comment.
John Whalley: In recent years, I have been more concerned about the Chinese economy, has been to China, and government departments and important research institutions, universities and scholars for academic exchanges. I think the current Chinese economic studies, there is a need to attract attention to the phenomenon, many young scholars trying to follow and emulate Western economic scholars. They seem to think that, in his academic research career The most important thing in North America and Europe published a paper to improve the international ranking, in order to obtain professional promotion. However, these North American and European journal articles used in the theoretical and empirical research does not apply to a lot of the analytical framework for research China's problems, my suggestion is based on the situation in China some adjustments and amendments, such as in a simple classical model based on the optimization of adding some things with Chinese characteristics, such as the collective sense of identity, all the people all of the production units (state-owned enterprises ), and others. Chinese young scholars seem to ignore some of China's national conditions, to imitate blindly mechanical paradigm of international journal papers. just a simple neoclassical model will be applied mechanically to the problem of China's economy may lead to errors. I think the current The most important thing is thinking for the unique characteristics of China's economy economics.
an important feature of China's economy is state-owned enterprises and non state-owned enterprises sector structure, which is very different with the structure of the foreign sector. The other is a characteristic identity identity, collective identity, rather than individual identity. I've read written by some Western scholars on the Chinese labor market supply behavior of paper, they described in the paper the utility function is a function of commodity consumption and leisure, without taking into account family . everyone is in China for domestic work, taking into account the individual interests of the family decision-making, so we need to give when doing research in the utility function of the family. Western civilization emphasizes self-centered values of equality and freedom of individuals, each Man is a separate entity. and Eastern Confucian culture emphasizes the group value, the family is composed of individual units of society, the individual is always in the Confucian view that individuals, families, community networks among.
if only the application of Western models China will come to a very misleading conclusion. on my experiences in China, I and age class of Chinese scholars have had in-depth exchanges, when I was living in decision-making and some senior Chinese economist (eg, more than sixty or six years old) sharing, they are also worried about this phenomenon, some young scholars trying to direct use of Western theories to explain the many problems China's economy, they can really understand these young scholars and explain the problem in China cautious. So, I feel in the country of being a senior economist and policy-making center may exist between young scholars a great awareness and knowledge of the structural differences in the generation gap. young scholars hope that the next few decades, China Economics research can more quickly close to the West. However, this just may become a significant economic problem facing.
part of young scholars currently studying the Chinese model of technology is more important than the understanding of the Chinese economy. As I understand it, may be because in China in the international academic papers published in a professional promotion the most important thing, and international journals often do not concern the characteristics of the Chinese economy. in political science, American politics and Canadian politics are different courses, because States political system is very different. In economics, usually Madagascar and France, the United States by the same research methods to deal with. However, it should be taken into account in the economics of the characteristics of different countries, in my opinion, This is for the Chinese is particularly important for economics.
nearly three decades, with a computable general equilibrium policy analysis technology has been one of my research. In China, some young scholars on a misunderstanding of CGE models that the purpose of the article is to build a complex model. in some eyes, the article evaluation standards of the article is not ideological, but the number of model equations, and the equation of the structure of the level of detail. In addition, numerical simulation the application of conclusions to be careful, these results are informative, not accurate, can not be directly used for policy decisions accurately, but only to provide appropriate directions for.
I mentioned above for , I know that many young Chinese scholars have realized this, but sometimes had to cut because of professional issues such as the trapped errors. there are some young scholars are trying to change this situation. U.S. financial crisis triggered by the Western economic scholars reflection of modern economics, I think, this is Chinese scholars consider China a good opportunity for economic development path, especially for young Chinese scholars.
Jun Zhang: For economists, especially the young Chinese economists, the study of economic structures and institutions are constantly in transition in the Chinese economy is not easy. The difficulty of the comments by Professor John Whalley typically pointed out. Of course, this is not to say that most Chinese economists do not see it that way. In fact, 20 years, I always hear older than me express the view of economists.
However, as young economists, this view is not easy to understand the true and rationality. One possible reason is that more young scholars are always read from their papers to others to find the subject of study, the result often is, the theoretical model, we can modify or change something, or China's experience with the experience of others directly on the material evidence of the methods and techniques. The reason why this practice is widespread, mainly because most of us only want to research papers of the existing theory can explain the observed phenomena in China, and do not pursue .
therefore, mimic the existing paradigm and techniques but not necessarily harm the quality of the paper to meet the basic requirements of the existing economics journal. In China, we often see, the young academic economists Research and Public Policy Research persons or the links between policy advice is very weak, even in many cases does not matter. This reflects the majority of young economists focus on the issues not from the concern of government policy, which may come from other people's papers and the existing literature.
our own, including John Whalley such as overseas economists, economists always hope that China can contribute to the development of economic theory. This idea is naturally assumed China's economic development and transition process of the development of economic theory the value of a unique experience. The assumption within the contemporary economists, of course, is controversial. If we accept this assumption, and I believe that more economists would accept this assumption, then observe and study the way the Chinese economy to continue to deserve our review, we need to find more opportunities for the discovery of the theory. of economics, China's contribution must be made from our (new) ideas and theories rather than from the direct application of existing theory.
course, we must realize is that the academic paradigm of economics in China during the transition, John Whalley, Professor pointed out that the situation is not necessarily very bad not constant. situation is improving. In general, in China, we can always find, at a certain age, the older is always better than the young economist economists better understand China institutional environment, can better observe the reality, there are more insights on policy, but also relatively more concerned about the large and more important issue. This shows that experience, experience and observation time in China are likely to affect the accumulation of China attitude and way of economic research.