Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) / X

Michael Pettis

35.4K posts

Michael Pettis

@michaelxpettis

Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment. For speaking engagements, please contact me at [email protected]

Beijing

Joined October 2017

Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Aug 20, 2023
1/14 This very good article explains quite well the problems the Chinese economy currently faces, but it should stress more that the model didn't "break down" recently, when growth rates started to slow sharply. It broke down at least 10-15 years ago.
wsj.com
China’s 40-Year Boom Is Over. What Comes Next?
The economic model that took the country from poverty to great-power status seems broken, and everywhere are signs of distress.
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Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Sep 3, 2022
1/9 I've been arguing for well over a decade that the reason most economists thought that China's GDP would overtake that of the US in the next decade or two was because they misunderstood China's growth model and the way it "created" GDP. wsj.com/articles/will-… via @WSJ
Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Oct 30, 2022
1/9 The idea that China's astonishing growth over the past three decades was the result of its embrace of free markets, and its recent slowdown a consequence of its rejection of free markets, is much more ideological than empirical.
Opinion | China Is About to Fall Into the Middle-Income Trap
From wsj.com
Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Mar 27, 2023
1/15 Almost everything Zakaria says here is wrong, and unanchored in any understanding of how the global balance of payments actually works. Like many people in Washington, Zakaria assumes (perhaps without realizing it) that the only things that should matter to the US are...
Fareed Zakaria
@FareedZakaria
Mar 26, 2023
If the US dollar's global supremacy erodes, America will face a reckoning like none before. My take:
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Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Feb 24, 2025
1/7 WSJ: "The top 10% of earners in the U.S. now account for 49.7% of all spending, a record in data going back to 1989. Three decades ago, they accounted for about 36%." It is surging stock and property markets that seem to drive their disproportionate spending.
The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever on Rich People
From wsj.com
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Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Apr 13, 2023
1/9 "'Every night I ask myself why all countries have to base their trade on the dollar,' Lula said in an impassioned speech at the New Development Bank in Shanghai. 'Why can’t we do trade based on our own currencies?'"
Brazil’s Lula calls for end to dollar trade dominance
From ft.com
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Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
May 17, 2020
Tang Jie, one of the very smart students in my Sunday seminar, presented the following graph in today’s meeting. It shows subway ridership this year in 30 major Chinese cities compared to the same period last year. Jie pointed out at least three interesting things about this...
Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Nov 29, 2024
1/11 If you want to understand the effects of trade intervention, its ok to ask economic historians, but never ask economists. That's because their answer will almost certainly reflect little more than their ideological position.
Justin Wolfers
@JustinWolfers
Nov 28, 2024
Interestingly @chrislhayes asked two INDEPENDENT experts, and BOTH agreed that there were significant problems with Trump's tariff threats.
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Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
May 1, 2022
1/10 Beijing is very worried about the potential effects of sanctions on China's vast holding of foreign assets, but the fact that they weren't able to come up with any solution shows the extent to which China is locked into a structural problem.
China meets banks to discuss protecting assets from US sanctions
From ft.com
Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Jul 29, 2022
1/8 Germany is caught in the high-income version of the middle-income trap: "Roughly one-quarter of German jobs depend on exports, compared with about 6% in the US. Germany’s home market is too small to absorb the surplus production of its firms."
How the German Economic Machine Broke Down
From wsj.com
Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Sep 27, 2023
1/10 Excellent Martin Wolf piece on China which, as always, does a great job of presenting a systemic view of the problem. Debt is too high and growing too rapidly, he notes, but the risk for China, is not that it might suffer a financial crisis.
How China can avoid the Japan trap
From ft.com
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Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Sep 26, 2022
1/3 "Nearly 60% of China’s overseas loans are now held by countries considered to be in financial distress, compared with 5% in 2010." I've long argued that what others described as "debt-trap diplomacy" was in fact mostly inexperience. wsj.com/articles/china… via @WSJ
China Reins In Its Belt and Road Program, $1 Trillion Later
From wsj.com
Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Oct 26, 2024
1/9 It's easy to see why many BRICS countries are wary of seeking an alternative to the dollar. The nine-nation group consists of 5 surplus economies and 4 deficit economies, with surpluses in 2023 collectively amounting to... sc.mp/b8on7?utm_sour… via @SCMPNews
Why not all the Brics players back Russia’s bid for a de-dollarised world
From scmp.com
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Michael Pettis
@michaelxpettis
Sep 12, 2024
1/8 China' private secret is suffering. Among other things, "“China used to be the best VC destination in the world after the US,” says one Beijing-based executive, but “the industry has just died before our eyes. The entrepreneurial spirit is dead.”
ft.com
How China has ‘throttled’ its private sector
Venture capital finance has dried up amid political and economic pressures, prompting a dramatic fall in new company formation
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