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:

    “Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them—their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.”
    —F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    “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)

    “I am not prepared to accept the economics of a housewife.”
    —Jacques Chirac (b. 1932)

    “Whether the nymph shall break Diana’s law,
    Or some frail china jarreceive a flaw,
    Or stain her honour, or her new brocade,”
    —Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

    “Until women learn to want economic independence ... and until they work out a way to get this independence without denying themselves the joys of love and motherhood, it seems to me feminism has no roots.”
    —Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)

    “The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow—one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)