China is entering a critical phase in its move to a market economy, in which it will establish the basic institutional foundations of a market economy, including legal frameworks that will govern property rights, competition, corporate governance, intellectual property, bankruptcy, contracts, etc. There is, of course, more than one form of market economy – the Scandinavian model differs from the Anglo-American, the Japanese, and the Continental European models, and by the same token, there are marked differences in legal structures. China has committed itself to developing a market economy with its own distinctive characteristics. Ongoing debates and discussions, and discussions over the next few years, will have a major effect in determining the kind of market economy into which China will evolve.
This provides a unique opportunity to think about the differences in institutional arrangements and their consequences – and what would normally be an academic exercise could turn out to have enormous impact for a quarter of the world’s population.
The project entails papers describing the major issues and trade-offs in each of the areas of focus and global experiences; the development of courses/curriculum based on these global perspectives which would be piloted at Columbia and at Tsinghua and Peking Universities; and a presentation of the results to policy makers in China. The task force might ultimately put out a book, a compilation of papers and commentaries that would be published in Chinese and in English, in one of the series of books which Oxford University Press and Columbia University Press are publishing for the Initiative for Policy Dialogue. A final stage of the project would reflect on the role of differences in perspectives, history, and circumstances in shaping views on these critical institutional/policy issues.
Participants:
- Richard Agenor
Task Force Member
Professor
University of Manchester - Erik Berglof
Task Force Member
Chief Economist
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development - Patrick Bolton
Task Force Member
Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business
Columbia University Business School - Ping Chen
Task Force Member
Professor
China Center for Economic Research, Peking University - Zhiyuan Cui
Task Force Member
Professor, Public Policy and Management
Tsinghua University - Xinghai Fang
Task Force Member
Deputy Director-General, Office for Financial Services
Shanghai Metropolitan Government - Jean-Paul Fitoussi
Task Force Member
Professor of Economics
Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris - Jun Fu
Task Force Member
Deputy Dean of School of Government
Peking University - James Galbraith
Task Force Member
Professor of Government, LBJ School of Public Affairs
University of Texas - Athar Hussain
Task Force Member
Deputy Director, Asia Research Centre
London School of Economics - Mo Ji
Task Force Member
PhD Candidate
Columbia University
- David Kennedy
Task Force Chair
Professor
Harvard Law School - Aziz Khan
Task Force Member
Professor
Columbia University - Peter Kirby
Task Force Member
Professor
University of Manchester - Lawrence Lau
Task Force Member
Vice-Chancellor
The Chinese University of Hong Kong - Hong Liu
Task Force Member
Director, Centre for Chinese Studies
University of Manchester - Mai Lu
Task Force Member
Secretary General
China Development Research Foundation - Xiaobo Lu
Task Force Member
Professor
Barnard College - Akbar Noman
Task Force Member
Senior Policy Fellow
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) - Anthony Ogus
Task Force Member
Professor
University of Manchester - Katharina Pistor
Task Force Member
Associate Professor, School of Law
Columbia University - Carl Riskin
Task Force Member
Professor of Economics
The Graduate Center, City University of New York
- Charles Sabel
Task Force Member
Maurice T. Moore Professor of Law
Columbia University - Francesco Saraceno
Task Force Member
Professor
Sciences Po Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris - Joseph Stiglitz
Task Force Chair
President
Initiative for Policy Dialogue (IPD) - Robert Wade
Task Force Member
Professor of Political Economy, Development Studies Institute
London School of Economics - Weidong Paul Wang
Task Force Member
Adjunct Professor of Business Law and Ethics
China Center for Economic Research, Peking University - Christine Wong
Task Force Member
Senior Fellow in Contemporary Chinese Studies
University of Oxford - Chenggang Xu
Task Force Member
Professor, Economics and Finance
The University of Hong Kong - Lan Xue
Task Force Member
Dean of School of Public Policy and Management
Tsinghua University - Yin-Fang Zhang
Task Force Member
Professor, Institute for Development Policy and Management
University of Manchester