China Economy Lecture featuring Christine Wong

Christine Wong (National University of Singapore) giving her China Economy Lecture with discussant Meg Rithmire (Harvard University)

China Economy Lecture featuring Christine Wong

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From Growth Engine to Fiscal Drag: Rethinking China’s Local Government Finance featuring Christine Wong, Visiting Research Professor, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore with Meg Rithmire, James E. Robison Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School For decades, local governments helped power China’s economic miracle, but they have now become a significant fiscal drag, mired in a deepening debt crisis. In this lecture, Christine Wong (University of Singapore) argues that this is not a problem of local mismanagement but a systemic, national crisis born from a decade-long structural erosion of the country’s fiscal foundations. Professor Wong reveals how mandated spending commitments have collided with collapsing revenues from both tax cuts and the implosion of the land market, forcing localities into a perilous dependency on unsustainable levels of official and “hidden” debt.

Watch the full lecture via the embedded video below or on YouTube.