Tag Archives: Chinese

Did China’s regulators exacerbate its recent stock market bubble?

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(8/2/1015) The plunge of China’s stock market that has taken place since June 2015 has received a lot of attention.  All the commentary says not only that the Chinese authorities have taken a variety of artificial measures to try to boost the market on the way down but also that they did the same during the huge run-up in stock prices between mid-2014 and mid-2015, when the Shanghai stock exchange composite index more than doubled.  The finger-wagging implications are that the Chinese authorities, particularly the stock market regulator, have not learned how to let the market operate and that they had only themselves to blame for the bubble in the first place. read more

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If China Stops Manipulating, Its Currency Will Depreciate

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(2/23/2015) A rare issue on which the two parties in the US Congress agree is the problem of “currency manipulation,” especially on the part of China.   Perhaps spurred by the 2014 appreciation of the dollar and the first signs of a resulting loss of American net exports, Congress is once again considering legislation to attack currencies that are seen as unfairly undervalued. The proposed measures include the threat of countervailing duties against imports from offending countries, although that would be inconsistent with international trading rules. read more

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China Is Not Yet #1

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Widespread recent reports have trumpeted: “China to overtake US as top economic power this year.”  The claim is basically wrong. The US remains the world’s largest economic power by a substantial margin.

The story was based on the April 29 release of a report from the ICP project of the World Bank: “2011 International Comparison Program Summary Results Release Compares the Real Size of the World Economies.”     The work of the International Comparison Program is extremely valuable.  I await eagerly their latest estimates every six years or so and I use them, including to look at China.  (Before 2005, the data collection exercise used to appear in the Penn World Tables.) read more

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