China is on the eve of a demographic shift that will have profound consequences on its economic and social landscape. Within a few years the working age population will reach a historical peak, and then begin a precipitous decline. This fact, along with anecdotes of rapidly rising migrant wages...

Using a new dataset, we measure the large gap between the representation of men and women in leadership positions in banks and bank supervision agencies worldwide. Women occupied less than 2 percent of bank CEOs positions, and less than 20 percent of the board seats in more than 80 percent of...

China’s current growth model— which has delivered steady and robust growth for two decades and lifted some 500 million individuals out of poverty—has become too reliant on credit and investment, and has begun to experience diminishing returns. Delays in advancing the government’s reform...

This paper gauges the key determinants of China''s private consumption in relation to GDP using data on the Chinese economy and evidence from other countries'' experiences. The results suggest there is nothing ""special"" about consumption in China. Rather, the challenge is to explain why the...

This paper assesses the sustainability of China''s export-oriented growth over the medium to longer term. It shows that maintaining the current export-oriented growth would require significant gains in market share through lower prices in a range of industries. This, in turn, could be achieved...