Just how Dickensian is China?
Inequality is better than it was. But it doesn’t feel that way
WITH ITS fast trains, super-apps, digital payments and techno-surveillance, China can seem like a vision of the future. But for some scholars, such as Yuen Yuen Ang of the University of Michigan, it is also reminiscent of the past. Its buccaneering accumulation of wealth and elaborate choreography of corruption recall America’s Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century, an era that takes its name from a novel by Mark Twain and Charles Warner.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Black cat, white cat, fat cat, thin cat”
Finance & economics October 2nd 2021
- How a housing downturn could wreck China’s growth model
- China’s new political risk premium
- The latest shock to China’s economy: power shortages
- Can lending controls solve the problem of unaffordable housing?
- Two Fed presidents resign after criticism of their investment activities
- Making sense of the chaos in commodity markets
- Just how Dickensian is China?
- Award: Henry Curr
From the October 2nd 2021 edition
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Germany’s economy goes from bad to worse
Things may look brighter next year, but the relief will be short-lived
An economics Nobel for work on why nations succeed and fail
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson and James Robinson tackled the most important question of all
Why investors should still avoid Chinese stocks
The debate about “uninvestibility” obscures something important
China’s property crisis claims more victims: companies
Unsold homes are contributing to a balance-sheet recession
Europe’s green trade restrictions are infuriating poor countries
Only the poorest can expect help to cushion the blow
How America learned to love tariffs
Protectionism hasn’t been this respectable for decades