Time: 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, Friday March 20

Location: IB 1012

Speaker: Yi Wen, Distinguished Professor of Economics at Shanghai Jiaotong University, Antai College of Economics and Management

Abstract:

This paper calls for a new economic research program that can explain China’s remarkable growth beyond the limitations of the Arrow-Debreu framework. We argue that the main problem with the Arrow-Debreu framework is its inability to explain the emergence of firms. It sheds new light on why and how mass production emerged in 18-19th century England, 19-20th century the United States, and 20-21st century China, but not in other parts of the world with similar geo-developmental conditions, such as the Netherlands, Mexico, or India. My central thesis is that firms emerge in response to market demand; however, the so-called ‘market’ is itself a fundamental public good that must be created by a developmental state rather than by an ‘invisible hand’. Consequently, the apparent lack of industrialization in certain nations is not primarily due to a shortage of technology, but rather to a lack of mass demand or a mass market. This, in turn, is attributable to the absence of a robust and assertive market creator — a mercantilist state.

Bio

Yi Wen holds a position as Distinguished Professor of Economics at Shanghai Jiaotong University, Antai College of Economics and Management. Before joining Shanghai Jiaotong University in 2021, Yi Wen was Assistant Vice President and Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. After receiving his Ph.D. in Economics in 1996, Yi Wen served as Assistant Professor of Economics at Cornell University (1999-2005) and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (1996-1999), and received full professorship offers from the University of Indiana (Bloomington 2008), Tsinghua University (2008), and the University of Warwick (2017). He accepted the offer from Tsinghua and taught there as CCB Chair Professor (2008-2014), while maintaining his position as Assistant Vice President at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis until 2021. Yi Wen is the author of more than 50 academic articles published in per-reviewed top economic journals, including Econometrica, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Economic Theory, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, European Economic Review, Economic Journal, Review of Economic Dynamics,  Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, and Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, among others; and the author of several influential books, including 1. “The Making of an Economic Superpower―Unlocking China’s Secret of Rapid Industrialization,” (World Scientific Co. 2016), 2.《伟大的中国工业革命》(清华大学出版2016), 3.《科学革命的密码——枪炮、战争与西方崛起之谜》(东方出版中心有限公司2021).