Economic Affairs
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Stanford Libraries and the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions are pleased to present the 2025 Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture featuring Professor Matteo Maggiori who will be speaking on Geoeconomics and the US-China Great Power Competition.

To attend in person, please register here.
To attend online, please register here.



Professor Maggiori will discuss how the U.S. and China apply economic pressure to achieve their political and economic goals, and the economic costs and benefits that this competition is imposing on the world. A discussion of economic security policies that other countries are implementing to shield their economies.
 


About the Speaker 

 

Headshot of Matteo Maggiori in dark collared shirt with light blue background

Professor Maggiori is the Moghadam Family Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His research focuses on international macroeconomics and finance. He is a co-founder and director of the Global Capital Allocation Project. His research topics have included the analysis of exchange rates under imperfect capital markets, capital flows, the international monetary system, reserve currencies, geoeconomics, tax havens, very long-run discount rates and climate change, and expectations and portfolio investment. His research combines theory and data with the aim of improving international economic policy. He is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research affiliate at the Center for Economic Policy Research. He received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.

Among a number of honors, he is the recipient of the Fischer Black Prize awarded to an outstanding financial economist under the age of 40, the Carnegie and Guggenheim fellowships, and the Bernacer Prize for outstanding contributions in macroeconomics and finance by a European economist under age 40.



The family of Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh donated his personal archive to the Stanford Libraries' Special Collections and endowed the Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh Memorial Lecture series to honor his legacy and to inspire future generations. Dr. Sam-Chung Hsieh (1919-2004) was former Governor of the Central Bank in Taiwan. During his tenure, he was responsible for the world's largest foreign exchange reserves, and was widely recognized for achieving stability and economic growth. In his long and distinguished career as economist and development specialist, he held key positions in multilateral institutions including the Asian Development Bank, where as founding Director, he was instrumental in advancing the green revolution and in the transformation of rural Asia. Read more about Dr. Hsieh.



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GSB Knight Management Center, Oberndorf Event Center 
657 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Matteo Maggiori, Professor of Finance, Stanford Graduate School of Business
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Heather Rahimi
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On February 26, 2025 the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions hosted a discussion on the role of industrial policy in U.S.-China competition, featuring insights from Skyline Scholars Loren Brandt from the University of Toronto and Xiaonian Xu from the China Europe International Business School, as well as Senior Fellow Mary Lovely from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The panelists examined the historical context, current trends, and future implications of China’s economic strategy and its impact on global trade.

Before moving to a question and answer session moderated by SCCEI Co-Director Scott Rozelle, each panelist shared their insights on the topic through short-form presentations.



China’s Growth: From Industrialization to Innovation
Panelists highlighted the transformation of China’s economy, characterizing its past expansion as a result of rapid industrialization rather than a so-called "economic miracle." They described China’s growth in two stages: an initial phase driven by market expansion and a later phase, emerging after 2008, where state-led stimulus measures played a dominant role.

It was noted that China’s post-industrialization period has led to economic stagnation, as capital accumulation peaked in 2005, leaving excess capacity in key sectors. With investment-driven growth slowing, experts emphasized the need for a shift toward innovation. However, this transition requires structural changes, including stronger rule of law, well-functioning markets, and better incentives for entrepreneurship. While China excels in commercialization, it still lags behind other leading economies in basic and applied research, critical components for sustained innovation.

While China excels in commercialization, it still lags behind other leading economies in basic and applied research, critical components for sustained innovation.

China’s Industrial Dominance: Successes and Costs
The discussion also analyzed China’s dominance in industries such as lithium batteries, electric vehicles, solar panels, and shipbuilding. The country’s success in these sectors was attributed to industrial policies that strategically direct state resources into key industries. However, these policies come with economic inefficiencies, including excessive production capacity and stagnating productivity growth.

While China’s industrial policies aim to reduce reliance on foreign technology and foster indigenous innovation, they have also led to concerns about global trade imbalances. For instance, China’s trade surplus in manufactured goods now significantly surpasses that of historical export champions Germany and Japan, disrupting global markets. Despite substantial investments in research and development, overall productivity growth has slowed, raising questions about the long-term viability of its industrial policies.

Despite substantial investments in research and development, overall productivity growth has slowed, raising questions about the long-term viability of its industrial policies.

Trade Tensions and U.S. Policy Responses
The panelists also explored how China’s development model has triggered trade tensions with the U.S. and other nations. They noted that industrial subsidies, state ownership, forced technology transfers, and non-tariff barriers have led to accusations of unfair trade practices. In response, the U.S. has imposed tariffs, blocked WTO dispute resolution mechanisms, and debated revisions to trade agreements, including the Phase 1 trade deal.

Some participants suggested that while U.S.-China relations remain contentious, future shifts in U.S. foreign policy—such as improved U.S.-Russia ties under the new Trump administration—could influence the direction of trade negotiations with China. However, national security concerns and economic competition in emerging sectors like AI and clean energy will likely keep tensions high.

Looking Ahead
The discussion collectively emphasized that China’s economy will face significant challenges if it doesn’t move from an investment-driven approach to one centered on innovation. While China continues to exert influence in key industries, questions remain about its ability to sustain long-term growth without addressing underlying inefficiencies. Meanwhile, U.S. trade policies will play a crucial role in shaping the future of global economic competition.

The event underscored the complexity of U.S.-China economic relations, with industrial policy at the heart of the debate. As both countries navigate these challenges, the global economy will continue to feel the ripple effects of their evolving competition.

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SCCEI Launches New Research Program on China’s Political Economy and Governance

SCCEI's newest research program seeks to advance empirical, multidisciplinary insights into China’s political economy, including how political institutions, the political environment, and the economic system influence each other and shape the allocation of resources, production, and distribution of wealth in society.
SCCEI Launches New Research Program on China’s Political Economy and Governance
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Decoding China’s Economic Slowdown: A Roundtable Discussion

The Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions and Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis co-organized a closed-door roundtable on China's recent economic slowdown and produced summary report of the discussion.
Decoding China’s Economic Slowdown: A Roundtable Discussion
Craig Allen speaks at SCCEI 2024 conference
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Silicon Showdown: Craig Allen Unpacks the Competition for Technology Leadership between the U.S. and China

Craig Allen, the President of the U.S.-China Business Council, spoke on the evolving dynamics of technological leadership between the U.S. and China and their implications for the rest of the world.
Silicon Showdown: Craig Allen Unpacks the Competition for Technology Leadership between the U.S. and China
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During this SCCEI event, expert panelists Xiaonian Xu, Loren Brandt, and Mary Lovely shared insights on the historical context, current trends, and future implications of China’s economic strategy and its impact on global trade.

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Soraya Johnson
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McGill University Professor of Political Science Juliet Johnson unpacked how central banks use their own museums to support the ‘stability narrative’ and promote confidence in financial institutions. She discussed her research in a recent REDS seminar co-sponsored by CDDRL and The Europe Center.

Central banks may be unique among government bureaucracies because of their investment in their own museums. Central banks focus on public outreach because monetary systems depend on collective belief in the value of money, as it is one of the most essential social contracts upon which modern society is built.

Museums can be effective instruments for improving faith in money and financial institutions. Visitors are unusually receptive to learning from museums because museums are often viewed as neutral, trusted guides. The number of central bank museums has increased significantly over the last two decades, and some get many visitors yearly. The Museum Bank Indonesia has an impressive 10,781 Google reviews and a 4.7-star rating.

The nearly 60 central bank museums that focus on economic education (in addition to numismatics and/or art) promote what Johnson calls the stability narrative, which is that central banks can maintain the value and security of money, represent the nation, and have become progressively more effective over time.

Through interactive exhibits and games, these museums aim to teach visitors that the central bank is needed to fight the evils of inflation. For example, the Bank of Finland museum has a display that features a green inflation monster to convey this sentiment. They use the exhibits to emphasize how people can be personally affected by inflation and, in many cases, to explain why maintaining a 2% inflation rate is ideal for protecting the value of money.

Central banks convey a sense of security to visitors through exhibits about detecting counterfeit money, regulating banks, and displaying their wealth, such as with gold bars. They tie their work to national pride through art displays about national heroes depicted on currency and by relating their work to prominent historical events. Through visual timelines, they convey how central bankers have learned from past mistakes and solved problems, making them more equipped to continue ensuring the stability of our financial system.

The rise of central bank museums exhibits the importance of improving public confidence in money and the financial institutions that control it, legitimizing an essential aspect of our society. 

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Julia Azari shared her research in a CDDRL seminar on February 20, 2025.
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Race, Presidential Transformation, and Impeachment Crises

Marquette University Professor of Political Science Julia Azari explored the link between race, presidential transformation, and impeachment crises in a CDDRL research seminar.
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Larry Diamond, Šumit Ganguly, and Dinsha Mistree present their research in a CDDRL seminar.
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The Future of India’s Democracy

Stanford Scholars Larry Diamond, Šumit Ganguly, and Dinsha Mistree, co-editors of the recently released book "The Troubling State of India's Democracy," gathered to discuss how the decline of opposition parties in India has undermined the health of its democracy.
The Future of India’s Democracy
Keith Darden presented his research in a CDDRL/TEC REDS Seminar on February 6, 2025.
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War and the Re-Nationalization of Europe

American University Political Scientist Keith Darden examines how the Russian-Ukrainian war is reshaping European institutions.
War and the Re-Nationalization of Europe
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Juliet Johnson, Professor of Political Science at McGill University, explores how central banks build public trust through museums.

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In-person: Stanford Graduate School Business - C105 (655 Knight Way, Stanford)

Online: Via Zoom

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Supply chains can be surprisingly complex. In many low- and middle-income settings, large companies often rely on networks of small, independent distributors who travel by foot to sell consumer goods to otherwise hard-to-reach customers (Kruijff et al. 2024). These ‘micro-distributors’ operate at the far edge of the supply chain, with no formal employment contracts, thin profit margins, and high levels of economic risk.

In a field experiment in Kenya, we partnered with one of the world’s largest food manufacturers (pseudonymously “FoodCo”) to evaluate whether investment-appropriate financing contracts could help their independent distributors improve their business performance. We found that tailoring repayment terms to better share risk and rewards—compared to a standard, rigid debt contract—significantly boosted distributors’ profits. Crucially, these more flexible contracts took advantage of detailed administrative data on monthly performance. These findings underscore the promise of improved observability enabled by digitisation: with richer data, financial contracts can be designed to incorporate greater risk-sharing (Fischer 2013, Meki 2024), potentially opening new opportunities for mutually beneficial investments.

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Flexible financing for ‘last-mile’ distributors boosted profits across a food supply chain in Kenya.

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VoxDev
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Francesco Cordaro
Marcel Fafchamps
Colin Mayer
Muhammad Meki
Simon Quinn
Kate Roll
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Flyer for the conference "Taiwan Forward." Image: aerial view of Taipei.

Organized by the Taiwan Program at Stanford University’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC)
Co-sponsored by National Taiwan University's Office of International Affairs

As Taiwan looks to develop comprehensive strategies to promote national interests, it faces challenges shared by other advanced economies. How can Taiwan leverage AI innovation and its semiconductor prowess to drive resilience and continued growth while promoting entrepreneurship and forging advantages in emerging industries? What regulatory and policy measures are needed to scale Taiwan’s role as a global leader in biomedical and healthcare advancements while ensuring patient trust and safety? How can it address the gaps posed by rapid family changes and population aging? And how do its historical and linguistic legacies shape present narratives and identities, within Taiwan and among the Taiwanese diaspora?

Join us for a conference that explores these questions and more, featuring panel discussions with scholars from Stanford University, National Taiwan University, and other universities in Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, alongside Taiwanese industry leaders. We will examine Taiwan’s strategies for navigating modernization in a shifting global landscape — bridging technology, industry, culture, and society through interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives.

 

8:45 - 9:10 a.m.
Opening Session

Welcome Remarks

Shih-Torng Ding
Executive Vice President, National Taiwan University

Gi-Wook Shin
Director, Shorenstein APARC and the Taiwan Program, Stanford University

Congratulatory Remarks

Chia-Lung Lin
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Taiwan

Raymond Greene
Director, American Institute in Taiwan 


9:10-10:40 a.m.
Panel 1 — Advancing Health and Healthcare: Technology and Policy Perspectives     
    
Panelists 

Kuan-Ming Chen
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, National Taiwan University

Lynia Huang
Founder and CEO, Bamboo Technology Ltd.

Ming-Jen Lin
Distinguished Professor, Department of Economics, National Taiwan University

Siyan Yi
Associate Professor, School of Public Health, National University of Singapore

Moderator
Karen Eggleston
Director, Asia Health Policy Program, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University


10:40-10:50 a.m.
Coffee and Tea Break


10:50 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Panel 2 — Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Technology Leadership

Panelists 

Steve Chen
Co-founder, YouTube and Taiwan Gold Card Holder #1

Matthew Liu
Co-founder, Origin Protocol

Huey-Jen Jenny Su
Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Former President, National Cheng Kung University

Yaoting Wang
Founding Partner, Darwin Ventures, Taiwan

Moderator
H.-S. Philip Wong
Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor in the School of Engineering, Stanford University


12:30-1 p.m.

Perspectives from Stanford and NTU Students

Tiffany Chang
BS Student Engineering Management & Human-Centered Design, Stanford University

Liang-Yu Ko
MA Student in Sociology, National Taiwan University


1-2 p.m. 
Lunch Break


2-3:30 p.m.  
Panel 3 — Interwoven Identities: Exploring Chinese Languages, Taiwanese-american Narratives, and Japanese Colonial Legacies in Taiwan

Panelists 

Carissa Cheng
BA Student in International Relations, Stanford University

Yi-Ting Chung
PhD Candidate in History, Stanford University

Jeffrey Weng
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, National Taiwan University

Moderator
Ruo-Fan Liu
Taiwan Program Postdoctoral Fellow, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University


3:30-3:45 p.m. 
Coffee and Tea Break


3:45-5:15 p.m.    
Panel 4 —  The Demographic Transformation: Lessons from Taiwan and Comparative Cases

Panelists

Yen-Hsin Alice Cheng
Professor, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica

Youngtae Cho
Professor of Demography and Director, Population Policy Research Center, Seoul National University

Setsuya Fukuda
Senior Researcher, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, Japan

Moderator
Paul Y. Chang
Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Association Senior Fellow, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University


5:15-5:30 p.m.    
Closing Remarks

Gi-Wook Shin
Director, Shorenstein APARC and the Taiwan Program, Stanford University

THIS CONFERENCE IS HELD IN TAIPEI, TAIWAN, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 23, 2025, FROM 8:45 AM TO 5:30 PM, TAIPEI TIME

International Conference Hall, Tsai Lecture Hall
College of Law
National Taiwan University

No.1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road
Taipei City, 10617
Taiwan

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Cover of the book "The Four Talent Giants"

The Asia-Pacific region has seen extraordinary economic achievements. Japan's post-World War II transformation into an economic powerhouse challenging US dominance by the late 1980s was miraculous. China's rise as the world's second-largest economy is one of the 21st century's most stunning stories. India, now a top-five economy by GDP, is rapidly ascending. Despite its small population, Australia ranked among the top ten GDP nations in 1960 and has remained resilient. While cultivating, attracting, and leveraging talent has been crucial to growth in these countries, their approaches have varied widely, reflecting significant cultural, historical, and institutional differences.

In this sweeping analysis of talent development strategies, Gi-Wook Shin investigates how these four "talent giants'' achieved economic power and sustained momentum by responding to risks and challenges such as demographic crises, brain drain, and geopolitical tensions. This book offers invaluable insights for policymakers and is essential for scholars, students, and readers interested in understanding the dynamics of talent and economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.

This title is forthcoming in July 2025.

Advance praise for The Four Talent Giants:

"The Four Talent Giants is a wonderful book, full of new ideas and, especially, comparative empirical research. Gi-Wook Shin's ambitious treatment of the topic of human capital, or 'talent,' in the context of a globalized economy is very important and reading it will be a rewarding exercise for scholars, politicians, corporate leaders, and many others."
—Nirvikar Singh, University of California, Santa Cruz

"The current scholarly literature offers multiple country-specific talent formation studies, including those on the transformative role of skilled migration. However, few authors have dared to attempt a thorough cross-national analysis, comparing the nature and impact of policies across highly variable geopolitical contexts. The Four Talent Giants achieves this goal triumphantly, and accessibly, assessing the global implications of national experimentation for effective talent portfolio management."
—Lesleyanne Hawthorne, University of Melbourne
 

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National Strategies for Human Resource Development Across Japan, Australia, China, and India

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Gi-Wook Shin
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Stanford University Press
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How can we build trust, especially in polarized societies? We propose that exposure to broad financial markets—where individuals place their assets in the hands of large groups of unfamiliar agents who nonetheless have the incentive and ability to promote their interests—can contribute to generalized trust. In a randomized controlled trial, we encourage Israelis to hold or trade stocks for up to seven weeks. We find that participation in financial markets increases the probability of expressing generalized trust by about 6 percentage points, equivalent to a quarter of the control group mean. The effects seem to be driven by political partisans along the left–right spectrum in Israel, and are robust to negative price changes. Thus, trust is not only a cause but can also be an effect of participation in financial markets.

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Journal of Public Economics
Authors
Saumitra Jha
Moses Shayo
Chagai Weiss
Number
February 2025, 105303

Encina Hall, East Wing, Room 413

Office Hours:
Select Wednesdays | 2:00-5:00 PM 
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Skyline Scholar (2025), Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions
Professor of Economics, Noranda Chair in Economics and International Trade, University of Toronto
Research Fellow, IZA
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PhD

Loren Brandt is the Noranda Chair Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto specializing in the Chinese economy. He is also a research fellow at the IZA (The Institute for the Study of Labor) in Bonn, Germany. He has published widely on the Chinese economy in leading economic journals and been involved in extensive household and enterprise survey work in both China and Vietnam. With Thomas Rawski, he completed Policy, Regulation, and Innovation in China’s Electricity and Telecom Industries (Cambridge University Press, 2019), an interdisciplinary effort analyzing the effect of government policy on the power and telecom sectors in China. He was also co-editor and major contributor to China’s Great Economic Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2008), which provides an integrated analysis of China’s unexpected economic boom of the past three decades. Brandt was also one of the area editors for Oxford University Press’ five-volume Encyclopedia of Economic History (2003). His current research focuses on issues of entrepreneurship and firm dynamics, industrial policy and innovation and  economic growth and structural change.

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A growing body of literature explores the effect of higher education on the urban–rural divide in China. Despite an increasing number of rural students gaining access to college, little is known about their performance in college or their job prospects after graduation. Using nationally representative data from over 40,000 urban and rural college students, we examine rural students’ college performance and estimate the impact of rural status on students’ first job wages in comparison to their urban peers. Our results indicate that once accepted into college, rural students perform equally as well, if not better, than their urban counterparts. Additionally, we discovered that rural students earn a 6.2 per cent wage premium compared to their urban counterparts in their first job after graduation. Our findings suggest the importance of expanding access to higher education for rural students, as it appears to serve as an equalizer between urban and rural students despite their significantly different backgrounds.

Journal Publisher
The China Quarterly
Authors
Huan Wang
Huan Wang
Claire Cousineau
Matthew Boswell
Matthew Boswell
Hongbin Li
Hongbin Li
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