On April 27, the Tsinghua PBCSF Global Vision Forum greeted its first speaker-Economist Justin Yifu Lin. As the Honorary Dean and a professor at Peking University's National School of Development, as well as a former World Bank Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, Prof. Lin delivered a report entitled “Coming into Focus. What Really Caused the Great Recession? How Best to Recover? How to Avoid Another? ”.

Starting with his experience at the World Bank, Prof. Lin made incisive analysis into three pressing issues: resolving the European debt crisis, restoring global economic growth, and constructing a new international monetary system.  

As the first Chief Economist at the World Bank from a developing country, he was able to analyze the root causes of the 2008 global economic crisis. Pointing out that a mutually beneficial strategy and the possibility of its realization would lead the globe towards stability and sustainability, he proposed a new international economic architecture to avoid a similar crisis occurring again.

On the topic of the root causes of the economic crisis, his views differed from those of many mainstream western economists. Most western analysts would say that the crisis was caused by the imbalance in international payments, an attempt to place the majority of blame on China for the trade surplus and undervaluation of the Chinese Yuan. He believed that the crisis was instead rooted in the policies of the United States itself. With the US financial deregulation began in the 1980s that has resulted in extensive leverage and the quantitative easing policies, there has been too much liquidity in the global marketplace.

In response to the European Debt Crisis, he suggested that they need to make globally synergized, counter-cyclical infrastructural investments that will eliminate the growth bottlenecks. The "beyond Keynesianism”, as he may call it, will serve to jumpstart global demand and utilize global excess capacity so as to restore stability and growth in the global economy.

He also discussed that scholars from developing countries should conduct their own theoretical analysis into their own problems, rather than simply adapting the western theories. Additionally, they should also put forward theoretical insights and policy recommendations according to their own understanding of the global markets, even in developed countries.

The event was chaired by Prof. ZHOU Hao. Senior Associate Dean NIE Fenghua and Associate Dean KANG Yitong were also in attendance.

The PBCSF Global Vision Forum is a public non-profit academic forum. The world’s most renowned speakers, including Nobel Prize laureates, senior executives from foreign central banks and regulators, and noted professors, are invited to provide their insights.