Summer School | The 5th NSE Summer School Closed with Success

From July 10th to 15th, 2018, the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University (INSE) held the 5th New Structural Economics Summer School, which bring together 18 influential economists and researchers and in total 102 outstanding undergraduate and graduate students and young scholars from more than 20 countries in Langrun Garden, Peking University for a five-day intensive lectures and academic communication related to New Structure Economics. The 5th NSE Summer School consisted of ten keynote lectures, two sessions on think tank practices, and an one-day field trip to a special industrial town in Hebei Province.

On July 10th, Prof. Justin Yifu Lin, Dean of INSE, delivered the welcome speech at the opening ceremony chaired by Prof. Yong Wang, Academic Deputy Dean of the INSE. Prof. Lin pointed out that each year the NSE Summer School convenes young students and scholars with the same mission to contribute to the economic development of developing countries where a large proportion of population are still living in poverty and harboring the hope of a better life, and provide them with a scientific methodology and approach to explore issues concerning economic growth and to help our countries, even the entire world, to achieve economic development.

Keynote Speeches

Prof. Justin Yi Lin then gave a keynote speech on New Structural Economics and its Policy Application, and introduced the origin, theoretical framework, application and implication of New Structural Economics theory. He especially explained in detail the role of government and market and their relationship in promoting economic development and the industrial policies from the perspective of New Structural Economics.

Prof. Wen Yi, Visiting Professor of Economics at INSE and Assistant Vice President of Federal Reserve Bank of America (St. Louis Branch) gave a lecture on State and Industrial Revolution: The Origin of National Wealth and the End of Utopian Marketism, and analyzed the origin of development of western countries.

Prof. Yong Wang, Academic Deputy Dean at INSE, gave a lecture on Remodeling Structural Change and introduced the theoretical foundation of New Structure Economics and the models they used to model the structure and structural changes in an economy. He noted that structural differences between developing and developed countries do exist and both the optimal industrial structure and the optimal institutions are endogenous.

On July 11th, Prof. Miaojie Yu, Boya Distinguished Professor and Deputy Dean of National School of Development at Peking University, delivered on Further Opening Up and Appropriate Retaliation: A Solution to China-Us Trade and introduced the causes of the Sino-Us trade war, how to understand the inequality of Sino-Us trade, and presented a quantitative approach to explain the Sino-Us trade war. At the end, prof. Yu analyzed China's possible response measures and predicted the future trend of the trade war.

Prof. Yuzhe Zhang, Associate Professor of Economics at Texas A&M University, presented a paper on Optimal Infant Industry Protection, which uses the market design and contract theory approach to analyze the necessity of protecting infant industry and identify the optimal protection measures for the infant industries.  

Dr. Célestin Monga, Vice President and Chief Economist of Economic Governance and Knowledge Management of African Development Bank Group, give a lecture on New Structural Economics: How it Can Foster International Development. He shared with the participants his perception of the theory and practices of the traditional international development thinking and New Structural Economics and his belief that NSE is the theory that can effectively solve the economic problems of developing countries.

Prof. Xiaobo Zhang, Distinguished Chair Professor at National School of Development, Peking University, gave a speech on Cluster-based Development, where he presented his research on China’s rural industrialization and studies on cluster in developing countries including China, Egypt etc. and revealed the key elements for the success of rural industrialization.

Prof. Jiandong Ju, Unigroup Chair Professor at the PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University, delivered a lecture on Dynamic Structural Analysis and New Geo-economics, and presented how to used mathematical model to decompose the conventional macroeconomic growth into structures and how to model structural dynamics of an economy.

Prof. Pengfei Wang, Professor of Economics at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, gave a speech on Asset Bubble and Monetary Policy, where he introduced the indefinite duration model proposed by him, Prof. Jianjun Miao, Visiting Professor at INSE and Professor at Boston University proposed and Prof. Yi Wen, with two related papers accepted by American Economic Review and American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics.

On July 14th, Prof. Keun Lee, Professor of Economics at Seoul National University, gave a speech on The Art of Technological Catch-up: Barriers, Detour and Leapfrogging, where he used data and tables to vividly explain the method and process of an economy to catch up with developed country as well as the risks and opportunities in the process.

Think Tank Sessions

On July 11th, in the Domestic Think Tank session, Prof. Jiajun Xu, Assistant Professor and Executive Deputy Dean of INSE, introduced the NSE Growth Identification and Facilitation (GIFF) framework, the methodology and projects of International Think Tank of INSE. Dr. Yan Wang, Senior Visiting Fellow of INSE and Former Senior Economist at World Bank, gave lecture on Patient Capital and New Approaches in Development Finance. Dr. Zuoxiang Zhao, Post-doctoral Research Fellow at INSE, introduced The China-Africa Industrial Capacity Cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative from the perspective of New Structural Economics. Chenmei Li, International Think Tank Project Research Specialist, shared China’s Early Experience on Garment Cluster Development and Lessons for Africa’s Economic Transformation.   

On July 12th, in the Domestic Think Tank session, Dr. Xi Chen, Research Fellow and Chief Officer at INSE, first introduced the Domestic Think Tank and the case studies. Then, Dr. Qiuyun Zhao, Post-doctoral Research Fellow of INSE, gave a lecture on the application of New Structural Economics to county development and county development strategies in China. Dr. Hui li, Post-doctoral Research Fellow of INSE introduced the case study of crayfish industry from the perspective of NSE. In the end, Dr. Caihui Fu, Research Fellow at INSE shared with participants an in-depth perspective of the integrating NSE theory with practices.

Field Trip to Wuqiang Music Town

On July 13th, led by Prof. Yong Wang, Academic Deputy Dean of INSE, and Dr. Xi Chen, Research Fellow and Chief Officer of INSE, the Summer School participants conducted a field trip to Wuqiang, Hebei Province and visited a special industrial town producing western musical instruments in Zhouwo Villiage. The small village in Wuqiang county is located on a plain with no natural landscapes, resources nor historical sites. Yet since 2012, the local government has collaborated with and Beijing Lude Culture and Art Center and the China’s largest, the world’s second largest western music instrument producers Jinyin Group to build a special industrial cluster characterized by musical instrument manufacturing as well as cultures and recreational activities related to music. The small village has now become one of China's most artistic tourist site, and attracts more than 30 thousand tourists each year.

PhD Program Info Session and Interview

In the evening of July 12th, the faculty of INSE met with the domestic participating students to introduce and communicate with the potential PhD candidates for the academic year 2019 about the features of INSE PhD program. The students will go on interview for the PhD program on July 14th and 15th.

The NSE Summer School also provided great opportunities for young scholars and students with diversified background and kindred spirits to exchange values, insights and experiences during the week. The more we communicate, the better understanding we have with each other.

On the closing ceremony, Prof. Lin issued class certificates to the students, expressing the hope of join efforts to facilitate the global economic development. At the end, he also thanked the volunteers and staffs for the efforts to make the success of the Summer School a reality.

For more information, please follow us on Wechat where related news about the 5th NSE Summer School will be released in the following weeks.  

 Written by: Yanru Ye