I’ll be giving a talk next week hosted by the University of Washington China Studies program, over Zoom of course. In it I will introduce the results of a research project I’ve been working on over the last couple of years, to measure China’s state-owned enterprise sector and interpret its economic role. I’ll have slides with lots of cool charts, and am looking forward to a lively discussions with friends from UW and elsewhere.

Here’s the blurb, and the link for the event:

The State Never Retreats: State Enterprises in the Chinese Economy, 1995-2018

Even after forty years of market reforms, the question of what role the state and private sectors play in China’s socialist market economy is still unsettled. Is the country experiencing a steady expansion of private businesses, or a new advance of state enterprises? In this talk, Andrew Batson will introduce new estimates of the economic size and structure of China’s state-owned enterprise sector, which turn out to have been remarkably stable over the past quarter century. He will discuss what these research findings show about the nature of China’s political system, how they affect our understanding of the history of China’s reform era, and what they mean for the future trajectory of China’s economy.

Post-event update

The talk was not recorded, but I’m posting here the slides I presented: