Über das Buch

– in englischer Sprache –

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The fast economic growth of China in the last three decades has impressed economists around the globe. How did China succeed to keep a high growth rate in such a long period? Which costs and risks could the rapid development of China imply? How could the historical success be maintained in the foreseeable future? A large number of economists and sociologists have been working on these themes for years. This is also the origin of this book. The book aims to develop a dynamic simulation model that is able to replicate not only China’s economic growth path but also its special saving pattern for the entire period of the economy reform launched in the late 1970s. The baseline model, which is a Computable General Equilibrium model with overlapping generations, assumes that two underlying transitions, namely the family structure conversion which has been taking place spontaneously since 1980 and the firm transition which was approved by the government and initiated by entrepreneurial households since 1992, account for China’s economic profile of high savings and sustainable growth.

In terms of the family structure conversion, the present model differentiates between altruistic and egoistic households and assumes that due to the economy reform the Chinese households gradually changed from the altruistic structure to the egoistic structure. The former refers to the family saving pattern where young agents financially support old agents and expect future transfers from their children, whereas the egoistic structure means that agents depend on own savings when they grow old. Since egoistic households build much higher savings than altruistic households, a transition from altruism to egoism itself explains the continuously increasing aggregate savings in the 1980s and helps explain the motion of savings during the 1990s and the 2000s to a great extent.

Following the study of Song, Storesletten and Zilibotti (2011) published in American Economic Review,…

Schlagworte

Finanzwissenschaft, China, Sparquote, Modell überlappender Generationen, Altruismus, Unternehmertum, Fiskalpolitik, Computable General Equilibrium, Overlapping Generations, Public Finance, Saving Rate, Altruism, Entrepreneurship, Fiscal Policy, Allgemeines Gleichgewichtsmodell, Volkswirtschaften