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)

    “The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races.... The economics of this musical esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.”
    —George Steiner (b. 1929)

    “In a country where misery and want were the foundation of the social structure, famine was periodic, death from starvation common, disease pervasive, thievery normal, and graft and corruption taken for granted, the elimination of these conditions in Communist China is so striking that negative aspects of the new rule fade in relative importance.”
    —Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)

    “A different world can be created or re-created—but not until we stop enshrining the economic values of invisible labor, infinite and obsessive growth, and a slow environmental suicide.”
    —Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)

    “There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion.”
    —John Emerich Edward Dalberg, 1st Baron Acton (1834–1902)