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The Chinese Birdcage

How China's Rise Almost Toppled the West

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Authors:
  1. Heleen Mees

    1. Brooklyn, USA

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  • Argues that China caused the global financial crisis
  • Explores China's influence on western economies
  • Focuses on the links between the labor market, corporate profits, and interest rates

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvi
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  2. The Chinese Birdcage

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 1-9

  3. Western Triumphalism

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 11-20

  4. China as the World’s Factory

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 21-32

  5. Housing Bubbles Across the Western Hemisphere

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 33-53

  6. The Global Financial Crisis

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 55-74

  7. The Economic Fallout

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 75-87

  8. Unlimited Supplies of Labor

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 89-97

  9. China’s Economic Development

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 99-114

  10. Corporate Cash Piles and Falling Interest Rates

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 115-131

  11. The Shortfall in Demand

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 133-162

  12. Piketty Reconsidered

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 163-173

  13. What Lies Ahead?

    • Heleen Mees
    Pages 175-189

  14. Back Matter

    Pages 191-197
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Keywords

About this book

This book vividly describes how China’s rise in the early 2000s led to rising profits and declining labor income everywhere, ultimately resulting in the global financial crisis. Under Deng Xiaoping’s policy of ‘reform and opening up’ in the 1980s, China quickly became the world’s factory floor...but powerful political leaders envisioned a world in which the market economy would be trapped within the confines of a planned economy. With China’s admission into the World Trade Organization in 2001, almost a billion people joined the global workforce, driving down the real wages of blue- and white-collar workers in the US and Europe while also lowering interest rates, which fueled housing bubbles and destabilized the financial sector. This book explores China’s significant influence on western economies by focusing on the links between the labor market, corporate profits, and interest rates, using Arthur Lewis's framework for economic growth with unlimited supplies of labor to argue that by2010 the world economy – and political situations – had been set back almost one hundred years. 

Authors and Affiliations

  • Brooklyn, USA

    Heleen Mees

About the author

Heleen Mees was Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Policy. She is a columnist for the Dutch daily De Volkskrant and she writes opinion articles for various international publications including Foreign Policy, The Financial Times, Project Syndicate, and NRC Handelsblad.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Chinese Birdcage

  • Book Subtitle: How China's Rise Almost Toppled the West

  • Authors: Heleen Mees

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58886-9

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York

  • eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-137-58888-3Published: 10 October 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-58886-9Published: 17 October 2016

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVI, 197

  • Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Regional/Spatial Science, Asian Economics, International Economics, Labor Economics

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