IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/124057.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

China's economic development in the new era: challenges and paths

Author

Listed:
  • Hepburn, Cameron
  • Stern, Nicholas
  • Xie, Chunping
  • Zenghelis, Dimitri

Abstract

China's economy has seen rapid development ever since its reform and opening-up strategy was launched in 1978. Strong economic expansion over the past four decades has taken China from low-income to upper-middle-income status. Looking back at the transformation that China has made, however, we must recognise that the old growth story is coming to an end. The phase of development driven by investment in physical capital will be increasingly supplanted by investment in assets such as knowledge and social capital as well as investment in preservation of natural capital. Recognising the challenges that China is facing, with this paper we aim to offer an approach to growth and development that could spell out a new development strategy for the country as the 21st century progresses. China will focus on the technologies with high-quality growth prospects: modern service sectors, including health, education, transport, communications and IT, artificial intelligence, finance, logistics, sustainable urban infrastructure and new food and land-use systems. With today's technologies, China can help the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries embark on a much more sustainable, more efficient and greener form of development, avoiding historical problems of pollution and congestion, with China itself moving up the value chain at the same time.

Suggested Citation

  • Hepburn, Cameron & Stern, Nicholas & Xie, Chunping & Zenghelis, Dimitri, 2023. "China's economic development in the new era: challenges and paths," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 124057, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:124057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/124057/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fagerberg, Jan, 2000. "Technological progress, structural change and productivity growth: a comparative study," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 393-411, December.
    2. Abi Adams, 2018. "Technology and the labour market: the assessment," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 34(3), pages 349-361.
    3. Nicholas R. Lardy, 2014. "Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 6932, April.
    4. Stern, Nicholas, 2015. "Why Are We Waiting? The Logic, Urgency, and Promise of Tackling Climate Change," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262029189, December.
    5. Timothy M. Lenton & Johan Rockström & Owen Gaffney & Stefan Rahmstorf & Katherine Richardson & Will Steffen & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, 2019. "Climate tipping points — too risky to bet against," Nature, Nature, vol. 575(7784), pages 592-595, November.
    6. Krugman, Paul, 1987. "The narrow moving band, the Dutch disease, and the competitive consequences of Mrs. Thatcher : Notes on trade in the presence of dynamic scale economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1-2), pages 41-55, October.
    7. Pfeiffer, Alexander & Hepburn, Cameron & Vogt-Schilb, Adrien & Caldecott, Ben, 2018. "Committed Emissions from Existing and Planned Power Plants and Asset Stranding Required to Meet the Paris Agreement," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 8886, Inter-American Development Bank.
    8. Emanuele Campiglio & Yannis Dafermos & Pierre Monnin & Josh Ryan-Collins & Guido Schotten & Misa Tanaka, 2018. "Climate change challenges for central banks and financial regulators," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(6), pages 462-468, June.
    9. Miss Mali Chivakul & Mr. Waikei R Lam & Xiaoguang Liu & Wojciech Maliszewski & Mr. Alfred Schipke, 2015. "Understanding Residential Real Estate in China," IMF Working Papers 2015/084, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    11. Richard R. Nelson, 1959. "The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(3), pages 297-297.
    12. John A. Mathews & Hao Tan, 2016. "Circular economy: Lessons from China," Nature, Nature, vol. 531(7595), pages 440-442, March.
    13. Hamilton, Kirk & Hepburn, Cameron (ed.), 2017. "National Wealth: What is Missing, Why it Matters," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198803720, Decembrie.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Choi, Joonhwan & Lee, Jaegul, 2017. "Repairing the R&D market failure: Public R&D subsidy and the composition of private R&D," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(8), pages 1465-1478.
    2. Paula Bustos & Juan Manuel Castro Vincenzi & Joan Monras & Jacopo Ponticelli, 2019. "Structural Transformation, Industrial Specialization, and Endogenous Growth," Working Papers wp2019_1906, CEMFI.
    3. Singh, Anuraag & Triulzi, Giorgio & Magee, Christopher L., 2021. "Technological improvement rate predictions for all technologies: Use of patent data and an extended domain description," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(9).
    4. Pozzolo, Alberto Franco, 2004. "Endogenous Growth in Open Economies - A Survey of Major Results," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp04020, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    5. Måns Söderbom & Francis Teal, 2003. "Openness and human capital as sources of productivity growth: An empirical investigation," CSAE Working Paper Series 2003-06, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    6. Kancs, d’Artis & Siliverstovs, Boriss, 2016. "R&D and non-linear productivity growth," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 634-646.
    7. Alejandro Diaz-Bautista, 2005. "Regional Convergence of Income and Labor Productivity in Mexico," Urban/Regional 0512016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Nordhaus, William, 2013. "Integrated Economic and Climate Modeling," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 1069-1131, Elsevier.
    9. Nicolas Carayol & Elodie Carpentier, 2022. "The spread of academic invention: a nationwide case study on French data (1995–2012)," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1395-1421, October.
    10. Tavassoli, Sam & Karlsson, Charlie, 2015. "Persistence of various types of innovation analyzed and explained," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1887-1901.
    11. Gans, Joshua S. & Murray, Fiona E. & Stern, Scott, 2017. "Contracting over the disclosure of scientific knowledge: Intellectual property and academic publication," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 820-835.
    12. Benigno, Gianluca & Fornaro, Luca & Wolf, Martin, 2022. "Reserve accumulation, growth and financial crises," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    13. Ponticelli, Jacopo & Bustos, Paula & Castro-Vincenzi, Juan & Monras, Joan, 2018. "Industrialization without Innovation," CEPR Discussion Papers 13379, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Jacquelyn Pless, 2022. "To Starve or to Stoke? Understanding Whether Divestment versus Investment Can Steer (Green) Innovation," NBER Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, volume 2, pages 107-147, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Jan Fagerberg & Martin Srholec, 2005. "Catching up: What are the Critical Factors for success?," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20050401, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    16. Andreas Lichter & Max Löffler & Ingo E. Isphording & Thu-Van Nguyen & Felix Poege & Sebastian Siegloch, 2025. "Profit Taxation, R&D Spending, and Innovation," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 432-463, February.
    17. Zakaria Babutsidze & Maurizio Iacopetta, 2016. "Innovation, growth and financial markets," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 1-24, March.
    18. Cameron Hepburn & Jacquelyn Pless & David Popp, 2018. "Policy Brief—Encouraging Innovation that Protects Environmental Systems: Five Policy Proposals," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 12(1), pages 154-169.
    19. Michael Peneder & Karl Aiginger & Gernot Hutschenreiter & Markus Marterbauer, 2001. "Structural Change and Economic Growth," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 20668.
    20. Alberola, Enrique & Benigno, Gianluca, 2017. "Revisiting the commodity curse: A financial perspective," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(S1), pages 87-106.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    14th Five-Year Plan; China's economy; climate change; global governance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O53 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Asia including Middle East
    • Q01 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General - - - Sustainable Development
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:124057. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.