Favorite blogs

I polled colleagues and former students about their favorite blogs and compiled a list.  I added asterisks to some of my own favs, but you be the judge.  Comments welcome, either in the comments or by email.

The quantity and quality of investment in China

MBA alum Aaron Butler asked about over-investment in China. Certainly investment rates over 40% of GDP are unusually high, but does China have too much capital? Those of us who follow China would summarize the situation somewhat differently:

China v. SEC

There’s a fascinating battle going on between US and Chinese regulators over auditing standards. The best summary I’ve seen comes from Patrick Chonavec and includes:

China and the United States are on a collision course — over accounting. Last week, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged the Chinese affiliates of the world’s top five accounting firms with violating securities laws for refusing to hand over information on suspect Chinese companies to investigators. The move is the latest, most dramatic step in an escalating standoff that could easily lead to a financial version of Armageddon: the forcible (and unprecedented) delisting of all Chinese shares currently traded on U.S. exchanges.  …

Growth in Europe and Asia

Franklin Allen gave a fascinating talk here today, sponsored by the China Initiative of the Center.   The issue is whether the emerging Asian economies can follow a different path from the European countries that developed before them.  Here’s my two-bullet take, but by all means read the paper, it’s filled with interesting stories and examples.

More on China and India

From Mike Spence:

I am pretty optimistic about both China and India.  They have different challenges but they have both proven to have deep talent in both the private and public sectors, and they both have a flexible, pragmatic approach to policy.

Spence on China and India

My colleague Mike Spence’s recent book  touches on a number of big-picture issues.  One is  the growth of emerging market economies:   they’re now more than half the world economy.  Another is the impact on developed economies, including the shift of low-skilled manufacturing activities to emerging markets.  It’s a good read.   Or you could watch Mike on Charlie Rose and at NYU Stern talking about related issues.

But what got my attention was this mention of China and India from a review by Daniel Gross in the Wash Post:

Managing trade

Virtually all economists believe trade is win-win:  free (or free-er) trade makes all countries better off.  But it’s not easy to convince others, many of whom see conspiracy and doom behind getting cheap goods from China or cheap services from India.  Surely that’s bad for us, they might say.

Mexico and China

Like a lot of people, I’ve been fascinated by China.  But after a closer look, it doesn’t look much different from Mexico.  Have we overdone it?