Strategies for Growth: the Changing Role of the State

Strategies for Growth: The Changing Role of the State

As part of Columbia University President's Global Innovation Fund, the Center on Global Economic Governance (CGEG) is conducting policy-oriented research into Strategies for Growth: The Changing Role of the State. This three-year project is being undertaken in collaboration with the Columbia Global Centers | Europe (Paris), East Asia (Beijing), and Latin America (Rio de Janeiro). The first major event of the project was a roundtable conference in Paris on October 5-6, 2014. The second major event is the following roundtable conference in Beijing. Its goal is to build on the discussion in Paris and examine major issues in the Asian context, with a particular focus on China. Motivation: Almost a decade after the onset of the US Financial Crisis leading to the Great Recession, the world is once again facing the possibility of a global slowdown – even before we had returned to real prosperity. Economic rebound from the recession has been weak and some key problems are even more complicated now than they were before – increased banking concentration, increased inequality, increased concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, and gridlock in the reform of the global system of governance. Questions arise as to how the global economy could be “reset” to avoid long-term stagnation; What can individual countries, China in particular, do? What can Asia as a region do? How do we achieve more global cooperation? The Role of the State in Economic Growth in East Asia March 18, 2016 Beijing, China In Collaboration with the Columbia Global Centers | East Asia (Beijing), the Columbia University Initiative for Policy Dialogue and Tsinghua University

Conference Program MARCH 18, 2016 | Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management VENUE: The Shunde Building, Fourth Floor, Room 418, Tsinghua School of Economics and Management (清华大学经济管理学院舜德楼)see associated map for walking or being dropped-off. On Friday, March 18, the conference will be run as a roundtable discussion with participants making short, targeted interventions. The day will be divided into five consecutive sessions. In each session, two or three participants (initial intervenors) will each give a 3-5 minute set of introductory remarks to start the discussion and then remaining participants are encouraged to chime-in with their own targeted (up to 1-minute) observations. 9:00 Arrival, Coffee and Opening Remarks  Welcome by Merit E. Janow, Dean and Professor, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, and Yingyi Qian (钱颖一), Dean and Professor, School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University  Opening remarks by Jan Svejnar, James T. Shotwell Professor of Global Political Economy and Founding Director of the Center on Global Economic Governance, Columbia University 9:30- Session I: Monetary Policy, Capital Flows & Capital Market Regulation 10:45 Should China intervene in the exchange rate market and capital flows? Should it prioritize domestic capital market development? What effect do exchange rate policies and Fed interest rate adjustments have on economic growth in Asia and China in particular? What capacity do countries have in managing international capital flows, which may be a major source of boom-bust financial cycles? Has competition to attract FDI affected the capacity of countries to appropriate a larger share of value-added and natural resource rents? Do investment agreements restrict the capacity of governments to introduce social and environmental regulations?

Chair: David Li, Mansfield Freeman Chair Professor of Economics; Dean of the Schwarzman Scholars at Tsinghua University; Director of Tsinghua University Center for China in the World Economy

Initial Interventions: Pascal Blanqué, Chief Investment Officer and Member of Executive Committee, Amundi Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University Haizhou Huang, Managing Director, China International Capital Corporation Justin Lin, Professor and Director, National School of Development, Peking University Boris Vujcic, Governor, Croatian National Bank Zhang Liqing, Director, Center for International Finance Studies (CIFS), Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE)

10:45- Break 11:00

11:00- Session II: Stabilization, Industrial Policy & Reforms, Environment and Income Inequality 12:15 What are the appropriate policy instruments for stabilizing China’s economy in view of its high debt (but also reserves) and a possible real estate bubble? What tax reforms does China need in view of the limited household consumption? How should the role of state in promoting development change in the next phase? What approach to take to rising inequality?

Should countries in Asia have a more proactive industrial policy or is creating the right business climate all that is needed? Do some countries deploy public resources more efficiently than others and if so, how? Is there a trade-off or complementarity between industrial and environmental policies?

Chair: Chong-En Bai, Associate Dean and Chairman of the Economics Department, Tsinghua University

Initial Interventions: Gérard Roland, E. Morris Cox Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley A. Michael Spence, William R. Berkley Professor in Economics & Business, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, NYU and winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Jan Svejnar, Director, Center on Global Economic Governance Shang-Jin Wei, Chief Economist, Asian Development Bank

12:30- Lunch and Keynote Address 14:00  Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University and winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

The Role of the State in the Next Stage of China's Development

Discussion: Edmund Phelps, McVickar Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University and winner of the 2006 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

14:00- Session III: Education, R&D and Convergence 15:15 What policies will enable China to continue to converge to advanced economies? What are the major impediments? More generally, why have some countries achieved long- term economic growth, while others have had a more uneven growth performance?

Chair: Xue Lan, Dean of the School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University Initial Interventions: Peter Jungen, Chairman, Peter Jungen Holding Gmbh Lawrence J. Lau, Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development, Department of Economics, Stanford University Kenneth Lieberthal, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development, the Brookings Institution Akbar Noman, Senior Fellow, Initiative for Policy Dialogue, Columbia University Martin Wolf, CBE, Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times

15:15- Break 15:30

15:30- Session IV: Global Economic Governance -- New Models, New Institutions? 16:45 Should individual states deal differently with supranational/global institutions such as the G20, IMF, World Bank, WTO, and UN? How will the New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and other regional arrangements interact with these institutions and with states and companies more generally? How will the old and new institutions influence growth in China and Asia in general? How do these new institutions help reduce the inequality in international decision-making that has existed until now?

Chair: Merit E. Janow, Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

Initial Interventions: Stephany Griffith-Jones, Financial Markets Director, Initiative for Policy Dialogue Yuefen Li, Special Advisor, Economics and Development Finance, South Centre Rakesh Mohan, Distinguished Fellow, Brookings India; and Senior Fellow, Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University Jeffrey Sachs, Director, Columbia University Earth Institute Wang Jian-ye, Managing Director, Silk Road Fund Co., Ltd., Professor of Economics and Director of the Volatility Institute at NYU Shanghai

Summation and Concluding Comments: Marcos Troyjo, Co-Director, Columbia University BRICLAB

16:45- Conference Closing Remarks

17:00 18:00 Reception and Dinner at the Wenjin Hotel 18:30 Conference Dinner Keynote Address – Lou Jiwei, Minister of Finance, People’s Republic of China

19:15 Dessert and Discussion

20:00 Closing Remarks