Speaker: Lizhi Liu, Assistant Professor, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University

In merely two decades, China has transformed from a digital newcomer to the world’s largest e-commerce market, with 800 million users and nearly 50% of global retail sales. In From Click to Boom, Lizhi Liu examines how China’s e-commerce boom is inherently “paradoxical,” why it addresses a core political economy question of institutional development, and how it illuminates a digital development path for developing countries. She also explores the profound impact of e-commerce on China’s economic governance and state-business relations. The talk will draw on extensive interviews, original surveys, tens of millions of proprietary data points, and a rare field experiment conducted across three Chinese provinces.

Lizhi Liu is an Assistant Professor at the McDonough School of Business and a faculty affiliate of the Department of Government at Georgetown University. Her research focuses on politics of trade and technology. Her work has been published in leading journals and university presses, including American Economic Review: Insights and Princeton University Press. Liu’s research has received funding from institutions such as the Gates Foundation and has earned multiple accolades, including recognition from the China-Britain Business Council as one of the “Best Books on China from 2024” and the 2020 Ronald Coase Award for Best Dissertation in Institutional and Organizational Economics. In 2021, she was named one of Poets&Quants’ Top 50 Undergraduate Business Professors.