IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/124057.html

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: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/124057/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Romer, Paul M, 1990. "Endogenous Technological Change," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 71-102, October.
    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. John A. Mathews & Hao Tan, 2016. "Circular economy: Lessons from China," Nature, Nature, vol. 531(7595), pages 440-442, March.
    7. 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.
    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. 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.
    10. Miss Mali Chivakul & Mr. Waikei Raphael Lam & Xiaoguang Liu & Wojciech Maliszewski & Mr. Alfred Schipke, 2015. "Understanding Residential Real Estate in China," IMF Working Papers 2015/084, International Monetary Fund.
    11. 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, October.
    12. Hamilton, Kirk & Hepburn, Cameron (ed.), 2017. "National Wealth: What is Missing, Why it Matters," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198803720.
    13. 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.
    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. Lamperti, Francesco & Bosetti, Valentina & Roventini, Andrea & Tavoni, Massimo & Treibich, Tania, 2021. "Three green financial policies to address climate risks," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    3. Matthias Firgo & Peter Mayerhofer, 2015. "Wissens-Spillovers und regionale Entwicklung - welche strukturpolitische Ausrichtung optimiert des Wachstum?," Working Paper Reihe der AK Wien - Materialien zu Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 144, Kammer für Arbeiter und Angestellte für Wien, Abteilung Wirtschaftswissenschaft und Statistik.
    4. Paula Bustos & Juan Manuel Castro Vincenzi & Joan Monras & Jacopo Ponticelli, 2019. "Structural Transformation, Industrial Specialization, and Endogenous Growth," Working Papers wp2019_1906, CEMFI.
    5. Beatriz Pereira Almeida & Eduardo Gonçalves & André Suriane Silva & Raquel Coelho Reis, 2021. "Internalization of knowledge spillovers by regions: a measure based on self-citation patents," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(2), pages 309-330, April.
    6. 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).
    7. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Soete, Luc & Weel, Bas ter, 1999. "Schumpeter and the Knowledge-Based Economy: On Technology and Competition Policy," Research Memorandum 004, Maastricht University, Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    11. Ashish Arora & Alfonso Gambardella & Enzo Rullani, 1997. "Division of Labour and the Locus of Inventive Activity," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 1(1), pages 123-140, March.
    12. Alejandro Diaz-Bautista, 2005. "Regional Convergence of Income and Labor Productivity in Mexico," Urban/Regional 0512016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Claude Diebolt & Tapas Mishra & Bazoumana Ouattara & Mamata Parhi, 2010. "Does democratic distance matter for cross-country growth interdependence?," Working Papers 10-12, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    14. Imran Shah & Linyu He & Richard Hatfield & Mohamed Haroon, 2020. "Outward FDI: National and Regional Policy Implications for Technology Innovation," Department of Economics Working Papers 77/20, University of Bath, Department of Economics.
    15. Quatraro, Francesco, 2008. "Regional Knowledge Base and Productivity Growth: The Evidence of Italian Manufacturing," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis LEI & BRICK - Laboratory of Economics of Innovation "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio 200810, University of Turin.
    16. Maria Rosaria Carillo & Erasmo Papagni, 2004. "Incentive Structure In Basic Research And Economic Growth," Working Papers 9_2004, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    17. Kealey, Terence & Ricketts, Martin, 2014. "Modelling science as a contribution good," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 1014-1024.
    18. 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.
    19. Martin, Ben R. & Steinmueller, W. Edward, 2025. "Richard R Nelson (1930–2025): Evolutionary economist and innovation scholar," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(4).
    20. Mukherjee, Arijit & Stern, Scott, 2009. "Disclosure or secrecy? The dynamics of Open Science," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 449-462, May.

    More about this item

    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.