Thank you, with a pleasure to be here. I was at the same position as the character of one of my favorite movies that you may have seen – "The Third Man", with Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton. It takes place in post-World War II Vienna, and Joseph Cotton is a second-rate author who’s been asked to give a talk to a book club in Vienna but he forgets about it. He comes down from his hotel and is taken very roughly into a car and driven at a very high speed through the streets in Vienna and all of sudden arrives at this room full of people where he’s supposed to give a talk. That’s more or less happen to me except I was grabbed yesterday driven at a very high speed today, and here I am, give you a talk totally unprepared. So I hope you forgive me for that.
I was interested, even though I don’t really understand Chinese, that I heard repeated, a couple of lectures here this morning, 1989, which I know very well. 1989 was ingrained in my memory, because that was the first year I came to China; I arrived in China to teach the Ford class in February of 1989. And it was only about six weeks later that my students told me that something was going to happen. And I said OK. Something’s about to happen, and then something did happen. We only give one final examination instead of two final examinations that year.
But thanks to the Ford class and Gregory Chow, the Ministry of Education and others. I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in a major change of my own: my research interests evolved from labor markets in general to the Chinese economy with an accent on economic growth, and labor market developments in China. And through that I have met fine scholars: they include one of my students Li Lianfa, at Bei Da, who become one of my co-authors; my teaching assistants, Xiao Zhijie, now Professor at Boston College and Li Hongyi, at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, remain close friends. A later student in the Ford Class, Wang Xiaojun, now at University of Hawaii, is a frequent coauthor. Li Haizheng, also a later Ford Class student, is my coauthor and “boss” at the China Center for Human Capital and Labor Market Research in Beijing.
I am also involved in a little bit in teaching at Zhongcaida in Beijing, thanks to the invitation of another Ford class graduate Haijiang Li. So although I have a limited experience in teaching Chinese students, perhaps I can discuss my thoughts and economic education in China from the perspective of an editor.
Hmm, I was thinking yesterday when Barry Naughton gave his talk, that he was talking about the short institutional memory of many of the young Chinese executives and officials. One of things he was talking about is that the importance of the state sector in production, which has been declining rapidly, has begun to rebound. Due in part to the global economic crisis, the state sector has received better financing from government-owned banks. The government-financed spending on infrastructure maintaining production of SOEs, and so forth, has helped support the Chinese and the World’s economy. But due to the relaxation of SOE budget constraints perhaps the decline of the state production sector in GDP is leveling off.
An important question raised by Barry Naughton is, How much of this leveling of decline in SOE relative size is due perhaps to the relatively short institutional memory of some of the middle level and younger officials? And how could this perhaps be changed? I was talking to Gan Li today about the courses they teach in Chengdu, and what the economic majors learn, and I said ‘do you teach economic history’? And he said ‘No, economic history is taught in the History Department and is an elective for the students’.
So one question I would have is: Are Chinese students missing an important part of the economic history of their country? I observe, as an editor, when articles are coming into China Economic Review that deal with institutional changes in China, or changes in financial institutions, changes in intellectual property right protection, changes in the role of small and medium business, and so on, the best articles are often written by people who have scholarly experience in the west. They may well be Chinese, but they are approaching the Chinese economy from a point of view of the that comes from the outside. And I think it is very important for all of the economics students, and for others too, to have a thorough institutional knowledge of the development of the Chinese economy written from the point of view of westerner or somebody who has practiced in the west, such as professor Chow’s textbooks.
Without this perspective, there’ll be something missing in the training of future business leaders and government leaders in China, and perhaps they will unnecessarily make the same mistakes they were made 50/60/70 years ago, and have to repeat history and learn in a difficult way lessons which could have been learned, and hopefully can be put into practice. People don’t always learn from history; we see mistakes over and over again and repeated –wars, and crises, and so on, in many parts of the world.
But to some extent, people can learn from history: one of the things I read about Ben Bernanke and the fed’s response to the near financial melt-down in the United States was that: he was an avid scholar of Milton Friedman, that he learned that monetary collapse was a principal cause for the Great Depression and world financial melt down in 1930s. And although there were mistakes made in the financial bailout, he was bounded to determine there would be no monetary collapse in the United States, and there wasn’t. I think that is an outstanding example of learning from history.
So I would suggest that an important addition to economics programs in China would be a thorough introduction to the institutional history of economic development in China from an outsider’s point of view.
So that’s my principle thought on economic education in China. Sorry I don’t have more to say, but that’s what came to my mind on my quick and exciting ride over here. Thank you!
Belton Fleisher Ohio State University，Editor for the China Economic Review
