China has been a world leader in the adoption of digital technologies. What lessons are there for the rest of the world?
China’s share of e-commerce sales to total sales has grown from zero ten years ago to three times the world average, and higher than the UK and the US. Moreover, that growth has been inclusive: consumers and entrepreneurs with lower incomes or in poorer regions of the country have benefited at least as much as wealthier ones. What are the lessons that China’s experience holds for the rest of the world? Can digital technology help developing countries improve their economic performance and provide opportunity to their poorer citizens? How can the challenges that the digital revolution brings be harnessed, both in developing and in developed economies? Dr. Long Chen, Director of Luohan Academy, will present the Academy’s first report, which provides new perspectives on these issues.
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Dr. Long Chen has served as the chief strategy officer of Ant Financial and now as the director of Luohan Academy, the open research platform initiated by both Alibaba and Ant Financial, that bring the best research minds together with first hand practical insights to advance the research frontiers of the digital economy and shape constructive consensus for the public good. He has also held the positions of Deputy Chief Director of PBOC’s Research Center of Internet Finance, Deputy Chief Director of China’s Internet Securities Commission, and Deputy Chairman of China’s Internet Insurance Association. Dr. Chen received his Ph.D. in Finance from University of Toronto, and was a tenured professor at Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis. After returning to China, Dr. Chen took the position of the Associate Dean of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business and built its Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) program.
Sir Christopher Pissarides is the Regius Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics, a Professor of European Studies at the University of Cyprus and Chairman of the Council of National Economy of the Republic of Cyprus, and the Helmut & Anna Pao Sohmen Professor-at-Large of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Economics, jointly with Dale Mortensen of Northwestern University and Peter Diamond of MIT, for his work in the economics of markets with frictions. Prior to that, in 2005, he became the first European economist to win the IZA Prize in Labor Economics, sharing it again with his collaborator Dale Mortensen. He is an elected Fellow of the British Academy, the Academy of Athens, the Academia Europaea and several other learned societies, and he is a Lifetime Honorary Member of the American Economic Association. In 2011 he served as the President of the European Economic Association.
The Financial Markets Group Research Centre (@FMG_LSE) was established in 1987 at the LSE. The FMG is a leading centre in Europe for policy research into financial markets.
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