Industrial Upgrading and Economic Growth in China

This conference will examine China’s changing development model and the role of industrial upgrading in promoting new sources of growth and development. We will seek to understand (1) the global, regional and national comparative and historical competitiveness contexts in which China’s industrial upgrading will take place, and (2) new technologies, the industrial ecosystems required for them to emerge and thrive, and their business, economic and social implications going forward. As history shows us, successful industrial upgrading is not a purely technical, market- and technology-driven process, but also a social process grounded in particular local circumstances. Industrial upgrading also involves deindustrialization, with new technologies displacing the old, hardware giving way to software, production yielding to consumption, and jobs being destroyed as others are created--processes that also need to be managed by governments and communities.

Keynote presentations will be given by Justin Yifu Lin, Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies Distinguished Visitor, Professor at Peking University and Former Chief Economist of the World Bank and Shang-Jin Wei, Chief Economist at the Asian Development Bank and Professor at Columbia University.

The Industrial Upgrading and Economic Growth in China conference is presented by Ross China Initiatives, LSA Department of Economics, and theLieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, and co-sponsored by the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Ross Executive Education.

Please contact ross-globalinitiatives@umich.edu for more information.