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PekingX: Development in Emerging Economies: The Case of China

Curious about China's development and the Chinese market but haven't known where to start? Peking University brings you an easy-to-understand primer.

Development in Emerging Economies: The Case of China
5 weeks
2–4 hours per week
Self-paced
Progress at your own speed
Free
Optional upgrade available

There is one session available:

After a course session ends, it will be archivedOpens in a new tab.
Starts Mar 19
Ends Dec 31

About this course

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The level of China's economic growth over the past 40 years cannot be described as anything less than astounding. With an economy less than 10% the size of the United States in 1978, it has since grown to become the world's second largest economy (as measured by nominal GDP). Despite China's importance to the global economy and to international business, many learners do not have the opportunity to study the country and its markets unless they enroll in specialized university coursework. Peking University's Guanghua School of Management created this course to make the topic of China's development more accessible through a collaboration with the World Bank's Open Learning Campus.

Guanghua's professors will unpack China's development over five weeks, first giving an overview of China's economic growth as context before addressing private equity, real estate financing, banking, the stock market, wealth management, and other topics associated with China's financial markets. The final two weeks will focus on providing an overview of the business environment in China, including fintech, consumer characteristics, internet companies and the digital economy, and entrepreneurship and innovation. By the end of the course, learners should have a firm grasp of successes China has seen during its development as well as challenges it must still overcome.

The information provided in this course will be useful for learners involved in international business, economics, or finance; learners interested in Asia; and learners from the government sector looking for new ideas to apply in their own countries.

Course created with support from

World Bank Group Open Learning Campus

At a glance

  • Language: English
  • Video Transcript: English
  • Associated skills:Wealth Management, Finance, Economics, Financial Technology (FinTech), Entrepreneurship, Economic Growth, Stock Markets, Management, Private Equity, Financial Market, International Business, Real Estate

What you'll learn

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Economics and Finance

  • China's economic growth trajectory since the beginning of its reform and opening up period
  • The evolution of China's financial industry, including the role finance has played in economic growth, the importance of the banking sector, and the development of China's stock market
  • Sources and types of financing across the Chinese market, the private equity market, and real estate financing

Doing Business in China

  • Context on the business landscape in China, including characteristics of Chinese enterprises, the entrepreneurial environment, and current state of innovation
  • Trends in digitalization and the adoption of Fintech
  • The emergence of e-commerce and the structure of China's internet companies
  • Factors influencing the behavior of Chinese consumers
  • Management and leadership in a Chinese context

China’s Economy

Session 1.1 Introduction to the Chinese Economy

Session 1.2 China’s Monetary Policy

Session 1.3 China’s Government Finance

Session 1.4 Trade and FDI of China

Session 1.5 Fiscal Policy of China

Finance in China – Part 1

Session 2.1 Chinese Finance: An Overview by Numbers

Session 2.2 Assessment: Good Finance vs. Bad Finance

Session 2.3 Banking Sector and Shadow Banking

Session 2.4 Chinese Stock Market

Session 2.5 Local Government Finance

Finance in China – Part 2

Session 3.1 Private Equity in China

Session 3.2 China’s Real Estate Market and Real Estate Financing

Session 3.3 Wealth Management in China

Session 3.4 Fintech in China

Session 3.5 The Future of the Chinese Finance

Business in China – Part 1

Session 4.1 Chinese Companies in Motion: An Overview with Numbers

Session 4.2 How E-commerce Thrived in China

Session 4.3 Models of Chinese Internet Companies

Session 4.4 Chinese Consumers and Brands in the Mobile Era

Session 4.5 Competition over Platform in China

Business in China – Part 2

Session 5.1 The Evolution of Chinese Enterprises and Management: An Overview with Numbers

Session 5.2 The Innovation of Chinese Enterprises

Session 5.3 Chinese Entrepreneurs and Executives

Session 5.4 Managing Chinese Employees: Past, Present, and Future

Session 5.5 Business Across Chinese Borders

*Each session is followed by a quiz.

Dr. Yuntao Dong

Yuntao Dong joined the Guanghua School of Management in 2019, as an Associate Professor of Organization and Strategic Management. Her research interest relies in leadership, creativity and innovation, and emotion management and emotional labor.

Dr. Li Jin

Li Jin currently serves as Chair Professor of Finance at Guanghua School of Management in Peking University. He is the Director of the National Centre for Financial Research at Peking University, as well as the Director of the Management Case Research Centre at Peking University. In the past, he has been a finance professor at the Harvard Business School and also served as an executive committee member of the Fairbank Centre for East Asian Research at Harvard University. He currently also serves as Professor of Finance at Oxford University Saïd Business School, and is a member of Oxford University China Centre. His research areas cover investment and finance, corporate governance, wealth management, family trust etc.

Dr. Laura Xiaolei Liu

Laura Xiaolei Liu is a Professor of Finance at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. She is the leading expert in finance and the Department Chair. Her work has been published in leading academic journals including Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Monetary Economics, and Management Science. She is the author of “Blockchain Community: A new form of organizational model”, “World Bank policy evaluation and developing economics”, she is also the coauthor of “Real Estate Boom and Misallocation of Capital in China”, which was presented at China International Conference in Finance in 2018 and American Financial Association conference in 2017 and Financial International Research Society Conference in 2017. Professor Liu is also the Funding member in China Finance Research Forum.

Dr. Ruichang Lu

Ruichang Lu, Associate Professor at the Department of Finance, Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. He received the Ph.D. degree in Finance from NUS Business School, National University of Singapore. His research interest covers Banking, Financial Intermediaries, Corporate Finance.

Dr. Fei Ren

Fei Ren is a Professor of Information Systems at the Department of Management Science and Information Systems, Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. She obtained bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and masters degree in Finance both from Peking University, and Ph.D. in Management (Information Systems) from University of California, Irvine. Professor Ren's research interests include IT business value, e-commerce, social media marketing, and user online behavior. Her research has appeared at leading academic journals such as Information Systems Research and Journal of Management Information Systems. Professor Ren currently teaches Electronic Commerce, Business Simulation, and Information Systems Research Methods for undergraduate, MBA, and graduate students.

Dr. Run Ren

Run Ren is an Associate Professor at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, China. She got her Ph.D. in Management from Texas A&M University. Her research interests include organizational justice, creativity, leadership, and human resource management. Her work has appeared in journals such as Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, etc.

Dr. Jiangmin Xu

Jiangmin Xu is currently an Associate Professor of Finance at the Guanghua School of Management. He got his Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University in 2009 and received his bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Xu’s research areas include Asset Pricing, Empirical Finance, Behavior Finance and Financial Econometrics.

Dr. Xiwei Yi

Xiwei Yi received her master’s degree from Peking University in 2011 and her Ph.D. degree from Rice University in 2016. She is now an Assistant Professor of the Department of Organization and Strategic Management at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. Her research interests focus on digitalization transformation, health care industry and growth of new ventures. Her research has been published in top-tier journals such as the Academy of Management Journal and the Strategic Management Journal.

Dr. Ying Zhang

Ying Zhang is an Associate Dean and Professor of Marketing and Behavioral Science at the Guanghua School of Management. Professor Zhang received his PhD from the Booth School of Business at University of Chicago. He does research in market strategy, branding and customer relationship management and has published extensively in both marketing and psychology.

Dr. Yu Zhang

Yu Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. He received a Ph.D. degree in economics from Princeton University after studying at the Department of Economics and the Bendheim Center for Finance. His research focuses on the intersection of macroeconomics and finance, with applications on housing, household finance, asset pricing, and supply chain finance.

Dr. Zhixue Zhang

Zhixue Zhang is a Professor of Organization and Strategic Management, the Director of Center for Research in Behavioral Science, and the Director of Management Innovation Interdisciplinary Research Platform at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. He got his Ph.D. degree in Social Psychology from the University of Hong Kong. He was a research fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1997-2000, a visiting scholar at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University in 2001-2002, a Freeman Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006-2007, a visiting professor at the Stockholm University in 2011-2013, and an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Hong Kong in 2017-2019. In 2009, he was awarded the Distinguished Young Scholar Fund by the National Natural Science Foundation of China. He is currently the president-elect of International Association for Chinese Management Research (IACMR), and the president since June 2020.

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