Posts by John Ross

Economics textbooks, particularly when discussing Keynes, frequently contain an elementary economic confusion – it should be made explicit this is a confusion in the textbooks and is not stated by Keynes. A typical example may be taken as Mankiw’s Principles of Economics, but numerous other examples could be cited as the confusion is widespread.1 This…

​Until recently, the big myth about China’s companies was their lack of innovation. That view is now being reassessed in a series of Western studies analyzing rapid innovation by China’s firms. Ming Zeng’s and Peter Williamson’s Dragons at Your Door, Dan Breznitz’s and Michael Murphree’s Run of the Red Queen, Vijay Govendarajan’s and Chris Trimble’s…

Inaccurate articles sometimes appear claiming China faces a “severe debt crisis.” Factually these are easily refuted. Changyong Rhee, the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department director, pointed out that China’s national and local government debt is only 53% of its GDP, compared to U.S. government debt which is roughly as big as GDP, or in Japan…

​IntroductionThe media outside China periodically carries predictions of a China ‘hard landing’. For example George Soros grabbed headlines earlier this year by declaring of China: ‘A hard landing is practically unavoidable.’ Soros himself has an inaccurate record of investing in Communist Party led, and ex-Communist, countries such as Russia and China – having lost approximately…