Yasheng Huang, professor at the Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will give a talk entitled “Understanding Chinese Economic Growth and its Future Prospects: Lessons of History” at the University of Tokyo on January 24th.

After four decades of rapid growth, the Chinese economy is entering an uncertain and even perilous period. Consumer and investor confidence is down and real estate sector, which is 25％ of the Chinese economy, is a drag on Chinese growth. Professor Yasheng Huang draws from his recent book, The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success and Might Lead to its Decline (Yale University Press, 2023), to discuss how Chinese history can offer lessons of why China has succeeded and why it is facing increasing challenges.

Yasheng Huang is a Professor and holds the Epoch Foundation Professorship of Global Economics and Management at MIT Sloan School of Management. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an Associate Dean in charge of MIT Sloan’s Global Partnership programs and its Action Learning initiatives. His previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School. Professor Huang is the author of 11 books in both English and Chinese and of many academic papers (such as on regulatory transparency, historical autocracy, statistical falsifications, tax, financing, sectoral and regulatory biases, history of reforms and strategy, political economy of controls, etc.).