China's Economic Reform: Implications from China and for the World

Myron Scholes Global Markets Forum

April 30, 2015, 5:30–7 p.m., Gleacher Center

China’s leaders have set progressively lower growth targets as they grapple with the need to restructure their economy away from excessive reliance on investment and exports, and toward greater consumption. David Dollar, senior fellow in the China Center at Brookings and former World Bank and Treasury representative in Beijing, discussed the economic reform program unveiled at the Third Plenum in fall 2013. What are the key reforms needed to shift the growth model? What has been the progress with reform during a year and a half of implementation?

Progress in areas such as financial liberalization has been steady, whereas fiscal and state enterprise reforms have been more difficult. Who are the key interest groups pushing for or retarding reform? Can China succeed in thoroughgoing economic reform without parallel efforts for political liberalization? In his talk and during the question-and-answer period, Dollar addressed these key questions regarding China's reform prospects, the success or failure of which will have significant implications for the world economy.

The Myron Scholes Global Markets Forum is part of the Initiative on Global Markets (IGM) and is generously sponsored by Myron Scholes.

Speaker Profiles


David Dollar is a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development programs in the John L. Thornton China Center. He is a leading expert on China’s economy and US-China economic relations. From 2009 to 2013 he was the US Treasury’s economic and financial emissary to China.

In that capacity he facilitated the economic and financial policy dialogue between the US and China. That included the formal meetings, notably the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue, as well as constant exchanges between the Treasury Department and Chinese economic policymakers at all levels. Based at the US embassy in Beijing, Dollar served as Treasury’s eyes and ears on the ground and reported back to Washington on economic and policy developments in China.

Dollar worked at the World Bank for 20 years, and from 2004 to 2009 was country director for China and Mongolia. His other World Bank assignments primarily focused on Asian economies, including South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Bangladesh, and India. From 1995 to 2004, Dollar worked in the World Bank’s research department.

Prior to his World Bank career, Dollar was an assistant professor of economics at UCLA, spending a semester in Beijing teaching at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He has a PhD in economics from New York University and a BA in Chinese history and language from Dartmouth College. He has written extensively about economic reform in China, globalization, and economic growth.

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