China and the West: Many Great Divergences? - Prof Joel Mokyr, Northwestern University

Goh Keng Swee Lecture on Modern China
Organised by East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore
Sponsored by Professor Saw Swee Hock

China and the West: Many Great Divergences?
Prof Joel Mokyr
Robert H Strotz Professor of Arts and Sciences and
Professor of Economics and History, Northwestern University, USA

Chaired by
Prof Bert Hofman
Director, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore

Tuesday, 23 July 2019

4.00 pm - 5.30 pm
Orchard Hotel Ballroom 3, Level 3
442 Orchard Rd, Singapore 238879

Abstract:
The literature on the Great Divergence between China and the West has traditionally centred around some measure of economic development and performance, and much of the literature has examined when an income gap opened between China and the industrialised nations of Europe. Explanations have focused on geographical and geo-political factors. However, many other divergences occurred after 1200 between the economies that may have contributed to the differences in economic outcomes and the Great Reversal in their respective economic performance. Among those, three stand out: the rise of the nuclear family in Europe as the fundamental unit of social organisation as opposed to the extended family and lineage in China; the differences in state function and state capacity between unified China and polycentric Europe; and the highly competitive nature of the market for ideas in Europe as opposed to the controlled and increasingly backward-looking intellectual life in China. All three divergences occurred many centuries before the Industrial Revolution. The net result was that both technologically and institutionally the chasms between China and Europe can be seen in many dimensions and demonstrate that any expectation of a trend towards a convergence in the 21st century may be overblown.

About the Speaker:
In 2006 Professor Joel Mokyr was awarded the biennial Heineken Prize by the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences for a lifetime achievement in historical science. In 2015 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Economic History awarded once every 20 years. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a foreign fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences, the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the Cliometric Society. In 2018 Professor Mokyr was elected as a distinguished fellow of the American Economic Association. His books have won a number of important prizes including the Joseph Schumpeter memorial prize, the Ranki prize for the best book in European Economic history, the Donald Price Prize of the American Political Science Association and the Allan Sharlin Prize of the Social Science History Association. He was made a doctor honoris causa by the National University of Uruguay in 2018. Professor Mokyr’s most recent book is A Culture of Growth, published by Princeton University Press in 2016. He has authored over 100 articles and books in his field.

About the Moderator:
Prof Bert Hofman, a Dutch national, is Director of the East Asian Institute at NUS and Professor of Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Before joining NUS, he was with the World Bank for 27 years, 22 of which in Asia, and 12 of which on China. Prof Hofman was the World Bank Country Director for China 2014-2019, the Country Economist 2004-2008, and the Chief Economist for the World Bank in the East Asia and Pacific region 2011-2014. He also worked on Indonesia, the Philippines, Korea and Mongolia. Before joining the World Bank, Prof Hofman worked at the Kiel Institute of World Economics, The OECD and NMB Bank (Now ING). He has extensive experience in advising governments around the region on a wide range of development issues, and published on fiscal policy, debt issues, and China’s and Indonesia’s recent economic history.

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