Steven N. S. Cheung - Contribution To Economics and China's Economic Development

Contribution To Economics and China's Economic Development

Chueng's contribution to economics and China's economic development can be roughly grouped in the following areas,

  1. New Institutional Economics
    1. how different kinds of contractual arrangement affect transaction costs, which are often ignored by neoclassical economists
    2. realizing the importance of transaction costs (as Cheung often mentions in his writings, if there is no transaction costs (the original starting point assumption by Coase), there is no difference in using different institutional arrangements (e.g. market or government)).
    3. the nature of the firm (a government, to a certain extent, is a firm and can be more efficient than the market in some areas),
  2. Methodology
    1. emphasis on economic explanation (according to Cheung, economic explanation is the ONLY objective of the study of economics);
    2. the analysis of relevant and observable real world constraints: Adam Smith's tradition,
    3. downward sloping demand curve: Neoclassical tradition,
    4. theories must be potentially refutable but not yet refuted (Cheung considers many mainstream concepts not observable, leading to the non-refutable nature of many theories (such as utilities, welfare))
    5. focus on capturing the underlying and relevant constraints to explain economic phenomena that might seem odd and strange on the surface.
  3. China's economic development
    1. Considerable influence among the Chinese speaking population (most of his work after 1982 are written in Chinese);
    2. Prediction of China's institutional reform (which, in general, has been quite accurate)
    3. Analysis of the deficiencies in the Chinese state owned enterprises


Read more about this topic:  Steven N. S. Cheung

Famous quotes containing the words contribution to, contribution, economics, china, economic and/or development:

    “He left behind, as his essential contribution to literature, a large repertoire of jokes which survive because of their sheer neatness, and because of a certain intriguing uncertainty—which extends to Wilde himself—as to whether they really mean anything.”
    —George Orwell (1903–1950)

    “Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.”
    —F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    “Women’s battle for financial equality has barely been joined, much less won. Society still traditionally assigns to woman the role of money-handler rather than money-maker, and our assigned specialty is far more likely to be home economics than financial economics.”
    —Paula Nelson (b. 1945)

    “The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation.”
    —Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)

    “Society’s double behavioral standard for women and for men is, in fact, a more effective deterrent than economic discrimination because it is more insidious, less tangible. Economic disadvantages involve ascertainable amounts, but the very nature of societal value judgments makes them harder to define, their effects harder to relate.”
    —Anne Tucker (b. 1945)

    “Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.”
    —George Orwell (1903–1950)