IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10499.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Neoclassical Growth of China

Author

Listed:
  • Jesús Fernández-Villaverde
  • Lee Ohanian
  • Wen Yao

Abstract

This paper studies China’s four-fold increase in per capita GDP relative to the U.S. between 1995 and 2019. First, we argue that China’s growth pattern is very similar to that of several other East Asia economies that initially grew very quickly. Second, we show that a minimalist Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model with a parsimonious TFP catch-up process can account for China’s growth path and the growth paths of other East Asia economies at a similar stage of development. The growth paths of other East Asia economies and the model predictions suggest that China’s growth will substantially slow, so much so that we find the U.S. growth rate will likely be higher than China’s by 2043. We also find that China’s income per capita will level off at roughly 44% of the U.S. level around 2100.

Suggested Citation

  • Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Lee Ohanian & Wen Yao, 2023. "The Neoclassical Growth of China," CESifo Working Paper Series 10499, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10499
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10499.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Douglas Gollin, 2002. "Getting Income Shares Right," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(2), pages 458-474, April.
    2. Robert J. Barro, 2016. "Economic Growth and Convergence, Applied Especially to China," NBER Working Papers 21872, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Karl Whelan, 2002. "A Guide To U.S. Chain Aggregated Nipa Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(2), pages 217-233, June.
    4. Herd,Richard, 2020. "Estimating Capital Formation and Capital Stock by Economic Sector in China : The Implications for Productivity Growth," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9317, The World Bank.
    5. Alwyn Young, 1992. "A Tale of Two Cities: Factor Accumulation and Technical Change in Hong Kong and Singapore," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1992, Volume 7, pages 13-64, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Naughton, Barry J., 2018. "The Chinese Economy: Adaptation and Growth, second edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 0262534797, April.
    7. Parente, Stephen L & Prescott, Edward C, 1994. "Barriers to Technology Adoption and Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(2), pages 298-321, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ron P. Smith, 2024. "Econometric Aspects of Convergence: A Survey," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 701-721, September.

    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. Diego Comin & Bart Hobijn, 2010. "An Exploration of Technology Diffusion," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2031-2059, December.
    2. Chen, Chaoran, 2020. "Technology adoption, capital deepening, and international productivity differences," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    3. Diego A. Comin & Marti Mestieri, 2010. "The Intensive Margin of Technology Adoption," Harvard Business School Working Papers 11-026, Harvard Business School.
    4. Diego A. Comin & Martí Mestieri, 2010. "An Intensive Exploration of Technology Diffusion," NBER Working Papers 16379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Jerzmanowski, Michal & Tamura, Robert, 2019. "Directed technological change & cross-country income differences: A quantitative analysis," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    6. Antonio Saravia & Carlos Gustavo Machicado & Felix Rioja, 2014. "Productivity, Structural Change and Latin American Development," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(3), pages 610-624, August.
    7. Sarath Delpachitra & Pham Van Dai, 2012. "The Determinants of TFP Growth in Middle Income Economies in ASEAN: Implication of Financial Crises," International Journal of Business and Economics, School of Management Development, Feng Chia University, Taichung, Taiwan, vol. 11(1), pages 63-88, June.
    8. Mendez-Guerra, Carlos, 2014. "On the Development Gap between Latin America and East Asia: Welfare, Efficiency, and Misallocation," MPRA Paper 62588, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Lee E. Ohanian & Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria & Mark L. J. Wright, 2018. "Bad Investments and Missed Opportunities? Postwar Capital Flows to Asia and Latin America," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(12), pages 3541-3582, December.
    10. repec:een:camaaa:2004-9 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Sáenz, Luis Felipe, 2022. "Time-varying capital intensities and the hump-shaped evolution of economic activity in manufacturing," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    12. John Fernald & Brent Neiman, 2011. "Growth Accounting with Misallocation: Or, Doing Less with More in Singapore," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 29-74, April.
    13. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    14. Dozie Okoye, 2016. "Appropriate Technology And Income Differences," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(3), pages 955-996, August.
    15. Armenter, Roc & Lahiri, Amartya, 2012. "Accounting for development through investment prices," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(6), pages 550-564.
    16. Perez-Sebastian, Fidel, 2000. "Transitional dynamics in an R&D-based growth model with imitation: Comparing its predictions to the data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 437-461, April.
    17. Klenow, Peter J. & Rodriguez-Clare, Andres, 2005. "Externalities and Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 817-861, Elsevier.
    18. Lili Kang & Fei Peng, 2018. "Economic Reform and Productivity Convergence in China," Arthaniti: Journal of Economic Theory and Practice, , vol. 17(1), pages 50-82, June.
    19. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2011. "Econometrics For Grumblers: A New Look At The Literature On Cross‐Country Growth Empirics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 109-155, February.
    20. Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian & Álvaro José Riascos & James A. Schmitz, 2006. "Latin America in the rearview mirror," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 30(Sep).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    China; East Asia; economic growth; Ramsey-Cass-Koopmans model; TFP catch up;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E10 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - General
    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    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:ces:ceswps:_10499. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.