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Michael Pettis 118 posts 0 comments

Michael Pettis is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a finance professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, where he specializes in Chinese financial markets. Pettis has worked on Wall Street in trading, capital markets, and corporate finance since 1987. Pettis is a member of the Institute of Latin American Studies Advisory Board at Columbia University as well as the Dean’s Advisory Board at the School of Public and International Affairs. He received an MBA in Finance in 1984 and an MIA in Development Economics in 1981, both from Columbia University. He writes the blog .

Economy

Feedback Loops

Michael Pettis May 14, 2013

We speak of the case in which positive shocks are self-reinforcing, as a virtuous circle, and the case in which negative shocks are self-reinforcing as a vicious circle, but the important point is that these processes are part of the same…

Economy

China: Some thoughts on investment and consumption

Michael Pettis May 10, 2013

I have been arguing for several years that once China begins the adjustment process, which I expect to characterize the ten-year period of the current administration, growth rates must slow significantly. My expectation for long-term growth…

Economy

The challenges for China’s new leadership

Michael Pettis Apr 11, 2013

My quick take is that the leadership is saying all the right things, but they have been saying these things for quite a while – nearly two years in the case of Li Keqiang, the new premier. The constraints they face, however, have neither…

Monetary System

When do we call it a solvency crisis?

Michael Pettis Mar 21, 2013

This post is extracted from my newsletter sent out four weeks ago, at a time when the mood in Europe was much better than now and when there was even a sense that the crisis was in the process of being resolved. I mention this to remind…

Monetary System

A brief history of the Chinese growth model

Michael Pettis Feb 21, 2013

The lessons for China, if I am right, are that China should forego the idea of nurturing national champions and should instead encourage brutal domestic competition. Beijing should also eliminate subsidies to production, the most important…

Economy

China, Spain and Japan: What I’ll be watching in 2013

Michael Pettis Feb 14, 2013

I’ll be watching a number of things in 2013 in order to get a better sense of what the future will bring. On January 22 Princeton University Press will be publishing my book, The Great Rebalancing: Trade, Conflict, and the Perilous Road…

Economy

China: Recognizing the need for economic adjustment

Michael Pettis Jan 14, 2013

In China, I have argued many times, high growth is no longer compatible with a strengthening balance sheet. If China is growing at a rate that approaches or exceeds five or six percent, it is probably a safe bet that debt is rising faster…

Economy

China: Three cheers for the new data?

Michael Pettis Dec 4, 2012

By Michael Pettis The big news in the past two weeks has been the slew of economic data suggesting that China has firmly turned the corner on its economic closedown. Growth is up, investment is up, and inflation is down. Here, for example,…

Markets

Is there an Asian RMB bloc?

Michael Pettis Nov 20, 2012

By Michael Pettis In the past two weeks we have been treated with a mostly positive but nonetheless mixed bag of economic data from China. There has been good news, bad news, good news with worrying underlying trends, and bad news with…

Economy

When the Growth Model Changes, Abandon the Correlations

Michael Pettis Oct 29, 2012

By Michael Pettis Chiwoong Lee at Goldman Sachs has a new report out (“China vs. 1970s Japan”, September 25, 2012) in which he predicts that China’s long-term growth rate will drop to 7.5-8.5%. I disagree very strongly with his forecast,…