Markets Over Mao

China’s transition to a market economy has propelled its remarkable economic growth since the late 1970s. In Markets Over Mao, Nicholas R. Lardy, one of the world’s foremost experts on the Chinese economy, traces the increasing role of market forces and refutes the widely advanced argument that Chinese economic progress rests on the government’s control of the economy’s “commanding heights.” In another challenge to conventional wisdom, Dr. Lardy finds little evidence that the decade of leadership of former President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao (2003–13) dramatically increased the role and importance of state-owned firms, as many people argue. Markets Over Mao offers powerfully persuasive evidence that the major sources of China’s growth in the future will be market-rather than state-driven, with private firms providing the major source of economic growth, the sole source of job creation, and the major contributor to China’s still growing role as a global trader. Dr. Lardy does, however, call on China to deregulate and increase competition in those portions of the economy in which state firms remain protected, especially in energy and finance.

Nicholas Lardy discussed his new book at a National Committee program on November 6, 2014, at Dorsey & Whitney.

Nicholas R. Lardy is the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He joined the Institute in March 2003 from the Brookings Institution, where he was a senior fellow from 1995 until 2003. Before Brookings, he served at the University of Washington, where he was the director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies from 1991 to 1995. From 1997 through the spring of 2000, he was also the Frederick Frank Adjunct Professor of International Trade and Finance at the Yale University School of Management. He is an expert on the Chinese economy.

Dr. Lardy’s most recent books are Markets Over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China (2014) and Sustaining China’s Economic Growth after the Global Financial Crisis (2012). His previous books include The Future of China’s Exchange Rate Policy (2009) (co-authored with Morris Goldstein), Integrating China into the Global Economy (2002), China’s Unfinished Economic Revolution (1998), China in the World Economy (1994), Foreign Trade and Economic Reform in China, 1978–1990 (1992), Agriculture in China’s Modern Economic Development (1983), and Economic Growth and Distribution in China (1978).

Dr. Lardy serves as a vice chair on the National Committee’s board of directors. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is a member of the editorial boards of Asia Policy and the China Review.

He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, both in economics.

Politics & Foreign Relations

• INTERVIEW | Nicholas Lardy on China’s Changing Economy

Politics & Foreign Relations

Recorded 11/6/14