China Economy Program Seminar

The China Economy Program hosted Professor Yasheng Huang (Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management, MIT Sloan School of Management) for a seminar both in person and online on 14 August 2026. 

China's rising export competitiveness lies at the heart of many current geopolitical tensions, and this seminar set out to explain how China has managed to improve its competitiveness across the board rather than along the narrower lines that trade theory would predict. Professor Huang argued that the Chinese economy is best understood as operating on absolute advantage rather than comparative advantage. The implication, he argued, is that rebalancing China's macroeconomy towards domestic consumption will better sustain economic growth in China in the long term.

About the Speaker

Yasheng Huang is the Epoch Foundation Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. A leading scholar of China's political economy and economic development, he has authored 11 books and numerous academic publications, including Statism with Chinese Characteristics: A History of China's Reforms and Reversals and The Rise and Fall of the EAST, which was named one of Foreign Affairs' Best Books of 2023.

This seminar was hosted by Crawford School of Public Policy's China Economy Program.