So small announcement. I have had this idea for a book for almost two years I've wanted to write about China and for various reasons, scheduling conflicts, getting kicked out, I have not had time to really set aside. I actually sent a book proposal to an academic publisher 1/n
And they actually complained that while the general topic was intriguing, it was too readable and did not read like an academic book. As I've returned to this book and dabbled over time, rather than spending the time getting a book deal, I'm just going to start serializing it 2/n
So here is the introduction and first chapter from the book tentatively entitled "The Great Transformation". For any political economists out there, I unabashedly draw inspiration from Karl Polanyi who wrote about the changes in society as economies 3/n papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
Changed and evolved. As economists, we too often treat economic evolution as additional inputs of investment or labor rather than wrestling with the messiness and change forced upon humans and institutions. This book is meant to be forward looking at what lies ahead for China 4/n
But this is not intended in anyway to forecast the economy. It also seeks to move away from looking at the Chinese economy as cyclical but what are the deep underlying structural factors that are not easily changed that will play a much larger impact on long term growth 5/n
I should mention, I overlap lots of data that hopefully you may not be aware of about China but also lots of ideas about the nature of economic growth and the specific challenges facing China, but then also covers positive things, personal anecdotes, and really the complexity 6/n
Of throwing your arms around something like the Chinese economy. Finally, if any publisher wants to do this let me know. I'm just not chasing down a book deal. Depending on the interest, I may "sell" advance copies to hire a research assistant and get this book out the door. 7/n
See the issue is that I really have numerous projects because some of them move more slowly and then bubble to the surface quickly for some reason. Anyway, I hope you like this beyond academic doodling but not really finely polished academic book. I think the ideas are valuable.
