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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – The drivers of the Great Bull Stock Market of 2015 in China: Evidence and Policy Implications

From May 2014 to June 2015 China’s stock markets experienced strong upward momentum; but something unusual was going on compared to previous China bull markets. Leverage was in the mix as never before. In fact, in the paper I’m highlighting this week from Mr. Guoxiang Song from the Department of Accounting and Finance at the […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – The 2015 U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Review

Yawn-tastic? That depends; Presidents Obama and Xi will meet next month and if you care to get an early peek at the agenda, and the likely outcomes it’s all here. U.S.- China Strategic and Economic Dialogue The link above will take you to the full summary from Mr. Malcolm R. Lee, Nonresident Senior Fellow in the […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – The Superiority of Economists

Why do economists have such a high opinion of themselves (they do)? Why does society turn to them for answers to issues that other branches of social science may be in a better position to address (it does)? The answer is simple; math and money. In this paper it’s authors, Marion Fourcade, Professor of Sociology, University […]

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The Sunday Paper – The Cost of Constraints: Risk Management, Agency Theory and Asset Prices

That the multi-trillion dollar global institutional asset management business is built on various forms of the same incorrect theory is not something the industry likes to spend too much time thinking, or Heaven forbid, talking about; and it certainly has no interest in socializing this issue with its clients. I’m referring specifically to the Capital […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – China’s Growth: Can Goldilocks Outgrow Bears?

More so than in recent years the debate about whether China can avoid the middle-income trap has recently assumed a high religious quality. Heretics point to an unsustainable growth model that isn’t being moved away from fast enough to allow China to shift down gears to a more orderly and sustained model. Believers respond that […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Understanding Residential Real Estate in China

When Mr. Jim Chanos described the China property market as ‘Dubai times 1000’ in 2010 he got a lot of attention; never let facts get in the way of a good trade. He has been proved not just wrong, but spectacularly so. Here we are in 2015, over five years on, and listed developers in aggregate […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Why Can’t We Be Friends? Assessing the Operational Value of Engaging PLA Leadership

Why Can’t We Be Friends? The link above will take you to a paper from the National Bureau of Asian Research (Seattle, Washington) written by Mr. James P. Nolan, a US Air Force officer assigned to U.S. Pacific Air Forces (who recently completed an MA at Georgetown University). It’s a depressing read as it highlights, […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Stature, Obesity, and Portfolio Choice

Stature, Obesity, and Portfolio Choice The link above will take you to a paper by George Korniotis and Alok Kumar, from the University of Miami, where they extend work on how physical appearance affects how many of us live our lives. John Adams (1.7m) joked that George Washington (1.88m) was sure to become the first […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Skyscraper Height and the Business Cycle: Separating Myth from Reality

Skyscraper Height and the Business Cycle It seems obvious there should be some relationship between the health of an economy and the willingness and ability of developers to create ever taller buildings. Moreover, since tall buildings are often not economically sound propositions a large part of the decision to construct them must rest on hubris […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Propaganda as Signalling

I’m part way through a disturbing new book that’s causing fresh chatter in the China nerdosphere and beyond [I’ve also seen a number of favorable reviews, the latest in the Weekend FT]. The book is ‘The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy’ by Mr. Daniel A. Bell, Chair Professor of the Schwarzman […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – China 60: From Fast Growth to Smart Growth

From Fast to Smart Growth The link above will take you to a fact-packed 64-pager from JLL that dives deeply into the current  state of affairs in and prospects for the major property investment sectors in China. They turn over each of the retail, logistics, office and hotel markets and, notwithstanding their obviously partisan position, […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Measuring the Quality of Management and the Integrity of Corporate Culture for Profitable Investing

Measuring the Quality of Management The link above will take you to one of the most powerful pieces I’ve seen in a while. Powerful because the idea is so simple. Why not analyze corporate communications and rank companies based on how much candor they display? That’s exactly what the author, Mr. L. J. Rittenhouse, CEO […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – A Chinese Perspective on National Life Science Innovation and Leadership

Can China innovate? I have no doubt; but that’s not a widely held view by many in the West. Not a paper today but an interesting interview with Yiwu He, PhD, MBA, Senior Program Officer for Discovery and Translational Sciences at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation where he oversees the Biomarker Program and manages […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – The Real Value of China’s Stock Market

Prejudice is sooo comforting. It removes the need for hard thinking, something I observe most of the world’s population seem to rarely engage in, and also it makes life easier if you just know you’re right about so much. Am I right, or am I right? Right? For investors though (and I’m as guilty as […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – My Ukraine

A rest from China this week, although I spent last week in Chengdu and Chongqing and will post a summary of the trip together with some new thinking in the next few days. Today, instead, something on the Ukraine. My interest in this was piqued by the decision of many world leaders to stay away […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – How Does XBRL Affect the Cost of Equity Capital? Evidence from an Emerging Market [China]

XBRL, if you’re not fully up to speed, stands for Extensible Business Reporting Language. It’s a global standard for financial reporting which can be machine read and China was the first jurisdiction that made it mandatory in 2009. The paper I’m highlighting this week is from Songsheng Chan, Ling Harris, Wenyang Li and Donglin Wu […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – International Trends in Technological Progress: Evidence From Patent Citations, 1980-2011

That China needs to make progress up the technology/innovation curve is obvious; not least to the Zhongnanhai based engineers of ‘New Normal’. How far behind the leading edge though are they presently I wondered? And how will we be able to measure the degree and rate of catchup in years to come? While investigating this […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Financial Develpment and Economic Growth: Evidence from China

Is there anything more thrilling than finding out something you took for granted is wrong? I started this paper with a heavy heart because I knew what it would conclude. I’ve read academic literature before on the subject and the conclusion is always the intuitive one that China’s underdeveloped financial system retards economic growth. Dozy […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – China’s New Silk Road

One belt, one road. Who wouldn’t want that? Er, right, but what is it? Exactly? This weeks paper is more a long snippet but distills elegantly the big thinking behind four words that may end up changing China’s place in the world order more profoundly than since Deng opened the door in 1978. Ms. Nadege […]

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Sunday Papers

The Sunday Paper – Xi Jinping’s inner circle: The mishu cluster I

http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2015/03/16-xi-jinping-inner-circle-mishu-cluster-li The link above will take you to a summary of the paper I want to highlight this week and also links to the first three papers in this series from Mr. Cheng Li of the Brookings Institute (roll back in my Sunday Papers section and you’ll find my earlier summaries). In this paper the […]