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366 books match the query 'International' and 28 start with i

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Imagining China

Rhetorics of Nationalism in an Age of Globalization

Stephen J. Hartnett

Michigan State University Press, 2017

Standing as the world’s two largest economies, marshaling the most imposing armies on earth, holding enormous stockpiles of nuclear weapons, consuming a majority share of the planet’s natural resources, and serving as the media generators and health care providers for billions of consumers around the globe, the United States and China are positioned to influence notions of democracy, nationalism, citizenship, human rights, environmental priorities, and public health for the foreseeable future. These broad issues are addressed as questions about communication—about how our two nations envision each other and how our interlinked imaginaries create both opportunities and obstacles for greater understanding and strengthened relations. Accordingly, this book provides in-depth communication-based analyses of how U.S. and Chinese officials, scholars, and activists configure each other, portray the relations between the two nations, and depict their shared and competing interests. As a first step toward building a new understanding between one another, Imagining China tackles the complicated question of how Americans, Chinese, and their respective allies imagine themselves enmeshed in nations, old rivalries, and emerging partnerships, while simultaneously meditating on the powers and limits of nationalism in our age of globalization.

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Import Competition and Response

Edited by Jagdish Bhagwati

University of Chicago Press, 1982

These papers, by a number of leading international-trade theorists, present the first significant theoretical work to be done on a topic of considerable interest, import competition. Nine theoretical papers, on topics ranging from protectionist lobbying to adjustment costs, are synthesized in the editor's Introduction, which also contrasts these contributions with the traditional classroom analysis of import competition. Three major empirical studies close the volume. It will prove indispensable for anyone who wishes to think clearly about import competition and about how economies do—and should—respond to it.

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Indigenous Peoples and Borders

Sheryl Lightfoot and Elsa Stamatopoulou, editors

Duke University Press, 2024

The legacies of borders are far-reaching for Indigenous Peoples. This collection offers new ways of understanding borders by departing from statist approaches to territoriality. Bringing together the fields of border studies, human rights, international relations, and Indigenous studies, it features a wide range of voices from across academia, public policy, and civil society. The contributors explore the profound and varying impacts of borders on Indigenous Peoples around the world and the ways borders are challenged and worked around. From Bangladesh’s colonially imposed militarized borders to resource extraction in the Russian Arctic and along the Colombia-Ecuador border to the transportation of toxic pesticides from the United States to Mexico, the chapters examine sovereignty, power, and obstructions to Indigenous rights and self-determination as well as globalization and the economic impacts of borders. Indigenous Peoples and Borders proposes future action that is informed by Indigenous Peoples’ voices, needs, and advocacy.

Contributors. Tone Bleie, Andrea Carmen, Jacqueline Gillis, Rauna Kuokkanen, Elifuraha Laltaika, Sheryl Lightfoot, David Bruce MacDonald, Toa Elisa Maldonado Ruiz, Binalakshmi “Bina” Nepram, Melissa Z. Patel, Manoel B. do Prado Junior, Hana Shams Ahmed, Elsa Stamatopoulou, Liubov Suliandziga, Rodion Sulyandziga, Yifat Susskind, Erika M. Yamada

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Industry at the Crossroads

Robert E. Cole, Editor

University of Michigan Press, 1982

The mood of the first U of M U.S.-Japan Auto conference in January 1981 could only be described as electric. People wanted to know what our problems were and how we could begin to solve them. Inherent in the latter issue was the questions, what could we learn from the Japanese? One left the conference with a sense that there was a call for action, a mandate to address the problems facing industry.

The mood, about a year later, at the March 1982 U.S.-Japan Auto Conference was far more subdued. While undoubtedly this reflected the stream of statistics confirming the continually depressed state of the industry, another dynamic was possibly operating as well. Whereas the 1981 conference was "electric," a state of mind which flowed from a certain frustration at seemingly overwhelming difficulties and often vague expectations of what we might learn from the Japanese, the 1982 conference was more "workmanlike" in the sense that speakers discussed specifically what progress was being made in addressing problems. This more subdued, pragmatic approach continued throughout wand was reinforced by workshops held the day after the main conference.

Instead of discussing the virtues of the Just-In-Time system in Japan, speakers addressed the practical problems of introducing such a system in the U.S. firms. Instead of railing about the benefits or failings of regulation of the industry, they discussed what we could reasonably expect from regulation. Instead of exhorting the industry to adopt Japanese practices willy-nilly, they focused on some of the limitations of the Japanese model in a range of different areas. Instead of trying to identify some magic key to Japanese success in the automotive industry, they discussed the interrelationships among various factors. At the same, they continued to explore the basic issues transforming the auto industry worldwide. In this connection, they sought to unravel some of the complexities associated with the internalization of the auto industry and trade obligations under the GATT.

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Institutions and Investments

Foreign Direct Investment in China during an Era of Reforms

Jun Fu

University of Michigan Press, 2000

As China continues to be heralded as a rising economic power, the need for an understanding of its institutional effects--such as investment-related policies, regulations, and laws--on foreign direct investment increases as well. Institutions and Investments employs interdisciplinary perspectives from economics, business, law, and political science to shed light on the interaction between institutional changes and investment patterns and to form a clear picture of investment behavior as China's legal and regulatory infrastructure has developed over the reform years.

Organized into three main parts, the book first discusses the evolution and nature of China's FDI regulatory framework. Part 2 examines the various modes and variant patterns of FDI in China in the reform years. Part 3's central task is to demonstrate a systematic link between institutional changes in China's FDI regulatory framework and the changing patterns of FDI. In conclusion, Jun Fu finds that China has made substantial progress from a command economy to a market system, but that it still has a long way to go before it truly attains a transparent and rule-based system.

This book adds new dimensions to the scholarship on China as a growing economic power and will be of particular interest to international economists, political scientists, and business scholars studying China.

Jun Fu is Associate Professor in the School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University.

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Intellectual Property

Trade, Competition, and Sustainable Development The World Trade Forum, Volume 3

Thomas Cottier and Petros C. Mavroidis, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 2003

The incorporation of intellectual property protection into the WTO international trading system has been a milestone in international economic law and has added a new dimension to trade regulation — new rights and obligations and new challenges alike. The contributors, leading scholars and practitioners in the field, provide insights into the legal relationship of the TRIPs Agreement to the GATT 94 and the GATS. The book widens the debate with a thorough discussion on pending and unresolved relations of TRIPs, the WTO, UPOV, the Convention on Biodiversity and Farmers' Rights contained in the FAO International Undertaking, and efforts of the World Bank GCIAR system, including IPGRI. What will be the impact of TRIPs on ownership of plant genetic resources?
Largely a victory for OECD countries, the present state of intellectual property rights has important implications for developing countries. The incorporation of intellectual property rights into the WTO system will eventually change the relationship of trade, competition, and intellectual property. It will equally have to assist in providing equitable sharing of benefits in the use of plant genetic resources. All of these issues are essential for the revision of exclusions from patenting in TRIPs. This volume offers insights into how this difficult task could and should be approached in a balanced manner and will be essential reading for economists and trade and intellectual property lawyers interested in the subject. Moreover, the volume will be relevant to agricultural economists as it addresses complex problems in the interstices of trade, intellectual property, plant genetic resources, and sustainable development.
Thomas Cottier is Professor of European and International Economic Law, University of Bern, and Managing Director, World Trade Institute, University of Bern.
Petros C. Mavroidis is Professor of Law, University of Neuchâtel. He formerly worked in the Legal Affairs Division of the World Trade Organization.
Marion Panizzon is Research Fellow, University of Bern.
Simon Lacey is Research Fellow, University of Bern.

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Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks

African Employees in the Making of Colonial Africa

Edited by Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn, and Richard L. Roberts

University of Wisconsin Press, 2006

As a young man in South Africa, Nelson Mandela aspired to be an interpreter or clerk, noting in his autobiography that “a career as a civil servant was a glittering prize for an African.” Africans in the lower echelons of colonial bureaucracy often held positions of little official authority, but in practice these positions were lynchpins of colonial rule. As the primary intermediaries among European colonial officials, African chiefs, and subject populations, these civil servants could manipulate the intersections of power, authority, and knowledge at the center of colonial society.
By uncovering the role of such men (and a few women) in the construction, function, and legal apparatus of colonial states, the essays in this volume highlight a new perspective. They offer important insights on hegemony, collaboration, and resistance, structures and changes in colonial rule, the role of language and education, the production of knowledge and expertise in colonial settings, and the impact of colonization in dividing African societies by gender, race, status, and class.

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International Bankruptcy

The Challenge of Insolvency in a Global Economy

Jodie Adams Kirshner

University of Chicago Press, 2018

With the growth of international business and the rise of companies with subsidiaries around the world, the question of where a company should file bankruptcy proceedings has become increasingly complicated. Today, most businesses are likely to have international trading partners, or to operate and hold assets in more than one country. To execute a corporate restructuring or liquidation under several different insolvency regimes at once is an enormous and expensive challenge.
With International Bankruptcy, Jodie Adams Kirshner explores the issues involved in determining which courts should have jurisdiction and which laws should apply in addressing problems within. Kirshner brings together theory with the discussion of specific cases and legal developments to explore this developing area of law. Looking at the key issues that arise in cross-border proceedings, International Bankruptcy offers a guide to this legal environment. In addition, she explores how globalization has encouraged the creation of new legal practices that bypass national legal systems, such as the European Insolvency Framework and the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. The traditional comparative law framework misses the nuances of these dynamics. Ultimately, Kirshner draws both positive and negative lessons about regulatory coordination in the hope of finding cleaner and more productive paths to wind down or rehabilitate failing international companies.

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International Development Policies

Perspectives for Industrial Countries

Sidney Dell

Duke University Press, 1991

In this survey of the field of international development policies, Sidney Dell challenges conventional wisdom and provides a rationale for a more cooperative and constructive approach to world development. Assessing the management of the global economy by the major economic powers and the policies that caused the world economy to lose momentum in the 1970s and 1980s, Dell directs his study to industrial countries which must, he claims, take responsibility for creating an environment favorable to Third World development.
Tracing the fundamental changes of the last forty years in international development policies toward the Third World, Dell details the transformation from a policy of collective responsibility on the part of the international community to the current status, in which the commitment of governments of industrial countries to Third World development is greatly diluted. He examines the growing conflicts in world trade and analyzes the failure of the international economic community to develop a long-run strategy for dealing with the world debt crisis.
Other topics addressed include the future of the international monetary system, the viability of small countries, strategies for development of basic needs, and the prospects for foreign private investment.

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International Differences in Entrepreneurship

Edited by Josh Lerner and Antoinette Schoar

University of Chicago Press, 2010

Often considered one of the major forces behind economic growth and development, the entrepreneurial firm can accelerate the speed of innovation and dissemination of new technologies, thus increasing a country's competitive edge in the global market. As a result, cultivating a strong culture of entrepreneurial thinking has become a primary goal throughout the world.

Surprisingly, there has been little systematic research or comparative analysis to show how the growth of entrepreneurship differs among countries in various stages of development. International Differences in Entrepreneurship fills this void by explaining how a country's institutional differences, cultural considerations, and personal characteristics can affect the role that entrepreneurs play in its economy. Developing an understanding of the origins of entrepreneurs as well as the choices they make and the complexity of their activities across countries and industries are of central importance to this volume. In addition, contributors consider how environmental factors of individual economies, such as market regulation, government subsidies for banks, and support for entrepreneurial culture affect the industry and the impact that entrepreneurs have on growth in developing nations.

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International Differences in the Business Practices and Productivity of Firms

Edited by Richard B. Freeman and Kathryn L. Shaw

University of Chicago Press, 2009

In recent years, globalization and the expansion of information technologies have reshaped managerial practices, forcing multinational firms to adjust business practices to different environments and domestic companies to adjust to their foreign competitors. In International Differences in the Business Practices and Productivity of Firms, a distinguished group of contributors examines the phenomenon of widespread differences in managerial practices across firms, establishments within firms, and countries.

This volume brings together eight studies that combine qualitative and quantitative insider analysis of business practices such as the use of teams, incentive pay, lean manufacturing, and quality control, revealing the elements that determine which practices are adopted and why. International Differences in the Business Practices and Productivity of Firms offers a much-needed model for measuring the productivity and performance of international firms in a fast-paced global economy.

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International Dimensions of Monetary Policy

Edited by Jordi Galí and Mark Gertler

University of Chicago Press, 2010

United States monetary policy has traditionally been modeled under the assumption that the domestic economy is immune to international factors and exogenous shocks. Such an assumption is increasingly unrealistic in the age of integrated capital markets, tightened links between national economies, and reduced trading costs. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy brings together fresh research to address the repercussions of the continuing evolution toward globalization for the conduct of monetary policy.

In this comprehensive book, the authors examine the real and potential effects of increased openness and exposure to international economic dynamics from a variety of perspectives. Their findings reveal that central banks continue to influence decisively domestic economic outcomes—even inflation—suggesting that international factors may have a limited role in national performance. International Dimensions of Monetary Policy will lead the way in analyzing monetary policy measures in complex economies.

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International Economic Cooperation

Edited by Martin Feldstein

University of Chicago Press, 1988

"A readable, balanced, and provocative view of the prospects for fruitful international economic cooperation. The papers are realistic: each discusses the difficulties involved in reaching cooperative solutions or procedures as well as the benefits of doing so. The discussion among the conference participants is lively, interesting, and insightful."--William H. Branson, Princeton University

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International Economic Relations

Commission of Inquiry into National Policy in International Economic Relations

University of Minnesota Press, 1934

International Economic Relations was first published in 1934. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

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International Economic Transactions

Issues in Measurement and Empirical Research

Edited by Peter Hooper and J. David Richardson

University of Chicago Press, 1991

How the government arrives at its official economic statistics deeply influences the lives of every American. Social Security payments and even some wages are linked to import prices through official inflation rates; special measures of national product are necessary for valid comparisons of vital social indicators such as relative standards of living and relative poverty. Poor information can result in poor policies. And yet, federal statistics agencies have been crippled by serious budget cuts—and more cuts may lie ahead.

Questioning the quality of current data and analytical procedures, this ambitious volume proposes innovative research designs and methods for data enhancement, and offers new data on trade prices and service transactions for future studies. Leading researchers address the measurement of international trade flows and prices, including the debate over measurement of computer prices and national productivity; compare international levels of manufacturing output; and assess the extent to which the United States has fallen into debt to the rest of the world.

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International Environmental Policy

From the Twentieth to the Twenty-First Century

Lynton Keith Caldwell

Duke University Press, 1996

In this newly revised and expanded edition of the award-winning International Environmental Policy, Lynton Keith Caldwell updates his comprehensive survey of the global international movement for protection of the environment. Serving as a history of international cooperation on environmental issues, this book focuses primarily on the development of international agreements and institutional arrangements—both governmental and nongovernmental—along with the impact of science, technology, trade, and communication on environmental policy. With implications for multinational commerce, population policy, agriculture, energy issues, biological and cultural diversity, transnational equity, ideology, and education, this book takes a broad view of the policy outcomes of what may be the most important social movement of the 20th century, and addresses the events and politics that have significantly affected the movement over the last twenty years and will continue to affect it into the next century.

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International Financial Issues in the Pacific Rim

Global Imbalances, Financial Liberalization, and Exchange Rate Policy

Edited by Takatoshi Ito and Andrew K. Rose

University of Chicago Press, 2008

The imbalanced, yet mutually beneficial, trading relationship between the United States and Asia has long been one of international finance’s most perplexing mysteries. Although the United States continues to post a substantial trade deficit—and China reaps the benefits of a surplus—the dollar has yet to sink in the face of ever-increasing account disparities. International Financial Issues in the Pacific Rim explains why the United States enjoys a seemingly symbiotic relationship with its trading partners despite stark inequities in the trade balance, especially with Asia. This timely and well-informed study also debunks the assumed link between economic openness and low inflation in the region, identifies the serious gap between academic and private-sector researchers’ understanding of exchange rate volatility, and analyzes the liberalization of Asian capital accounts. International Financial Issues in the Pacific Rim will have broad implications for global trade and economic policy issues in Asia and beyond.

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International Taxation and Multinational Activity

Edited by James R. Hines Jr.

University of Chicago Press, 2001

Because the actions of multinational corporations have a clear and direct effect on the flow of capital throughout the world, how and why these firms behave the way they do is a major issue for national governments and their policymakers. With an unprecedented ability to adjust the scale, character, and location of their global operations, international corporations have become increasingly sensitive to the kind and degree of tax obligations imposed on them by both host and home countries. Tax rules affect the volume of foreign direct investment, corporate borrowing, transfer pricing, dividend and royalty payments, and research and development. National governments that tax the profits of international firms face important challenges in designing tax policies to attract them. This collection examines the global ramifications of tax policies, offering up-to-date, theoretically innovative, and empirically sound perspectives on a problem of immense significance to future economic growth around the globe.

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International Trade Law Through the Cases

Volume I

Julian Arato, Joseph Weiler, Kathleen Claussen, Sungjoon Cho

Michigan Publishing Services, 2027

International trade law is a manifold. It comprises a wide array of international legal instruments designed to discipline states in their regulation of cross-border trade, including primarily trade in goods and services but also intellectual property, digital trade, and even investment. The study of international trade law requires choices. As the title of this book suggests, the choice of this particular book is to study international trade law through the cases—in particular the robust case law of the WTO. The theory behind our approach is rather that developing a firm foundation in the law and jurisprudence of the WTO will provide a student with the tools to confidently and competently analyze any international trade instrument on their own. The focus here is primarily (though not exclusively) on the law of the WTO, but the goal is to learn the key concepts and disciplines of international trade law writ large.

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International Trade Law Through the Cases

Volume II

Julian Arato, Joseph Weiler, Kathleen Claussen, Sungjoon Cho

Michigan Publishing Services, 2027

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International Trade and Human Rights

Foundations and Conceptual Issues (World Trade Forum, Volume 5)

Frederick M. Abbott, Christine Breining-Kaufmann and Thomas Cottier, Editors

University of Michigan Press, 2005

The World Trade Forum 2001 on Trade and Human Rights addressed some of the most controversial and challenging issues in the ongoing public debate on globalization: the relationship between institutions and norms regulating global economic activity and institutions and norms promoting and protecting human rights. Presenting a selection of the papers discussed at the Forum, this volume focuses on a significant, developing area of international law certain to become increasingly important in the years to come, as both scholarship and jurisprudence continue to explore the boundaries of the intersection of the two fields. With a diverse array of contributors, International Trade and Human Rights addresses the relationship between human rights and international trade from a unique and important interdisciplinary perspective.

The missing link between the international trade regime and human rights has become one of the key concerns of critics of the WTO. The World Trade Forum 2001 at the World Trade Institute in Berne provided a unique framework for considering the manifold issues relevant to this topic. This book goes beyond listing the different arguments in favor of or against globalization and offers recommendations to the international community for possible reforms so as to better account for the human rights interests affected by the process of globalization.

Frederick M. Abbott is the Edward Ball Eminent Scholar Professor of International Law at Florida State University College of Law. He is the editor of China in the World Trading System: Defining the Principles of Engagement (1998) and author of The International Intellectual Property System: Commentary and Materials (with Thomas Cottier and Francis Gurry, 1999).

Christine Breining-Kaufmann is Professor of Law at the University of Zurich and Senior Research Fellow as well as a member of the Board of the World Trade Institute in Berne. Her publications include Hunger als Rechtsproblem: Völkerrechtliche Aspekte eines Rechtes auf Nahrung (1991) and Globalization and Labour Rights: The Conflicting Relationship between Core Labour Rights and International Economic Institutions (2006).

Thomas Cottier is Managing Director of the World Trade Institute and Professor of Law at the University of Berne. He has co-edited the previous four volumes of the World Trade Forum series.

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International Trade in East Asia

Edited by Takatoshi Ito and Andrew K. Rose

University of Chicago Press, 2005

The practice of trading across international borders has undergone a series of changes with great consequences for the world trading community, the result of new trade agreements, a number of financial crises, the emergence of the World Trade Organization, and countless other less obvious developments. In International Trade in East Asia, a group of esteemed contributors provides a summary of empirical factors of international trade specifically as they pertain to East Asian countries such as China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.

Comprised of twelve fascinating studies, International Trade in East Asia highlights many of the trading practices between countries within the region as well as outside of it. The contributors bring into focus some of the region's endemic and external barriers to international trade and discuss strategies for improving productivity and fostering trade relationships. Studies on some of the factors that drive exports, the influence of research and development, the effects of foreign investment, and the ramifications of different types of protectionism will particularly resonate with the financial and economic communities who are trying to keep pace with this dramatically altered landscape.

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International Trade in Services and Intangibles in the Era of Globalization

Edited by Marshall B. Reinsdorf and Matthew J. Slaughter

University of Chicago Press, 2009

Quantitative measures of international exchange have historically focused on trade in tangible products or capital. However, services have recently become a larger portion of developed economies and international trade, and will only increase in the future. In International Trade in Services and Intangibles in the Era of Globalization, Marshall Reinsdorf and Matthew J. Slaughter examine new and emerging patterns of trade, especially the growing importance of transactions involving services or intangible assets such as intellectual property.

A distinguished team of contributors analyzes the challenges involved in measuring trade in intangibles, the comparative advantages enjoyed by United States service industries, and the heightened international competition for jobs, capital investment, economic growth, and tax revenue that results from trade in services. This comprehensive volume will be necessary reading for scholars seeking to understand the rapidly changing global economy.

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International and Interarea Comparisons of Income, Output, and Prices

Edited by Alan Heston and Robert E. Lipsey

University of Chicago Press, 1999

Economists wish to compare prices, real income, and output across countries and regions for many purposes. In the past, such comparisons were made in nominal terms, or by using exchange rates across countries, ignoring differences in price levels and thus distorting the results. Great progress has been made in interspatial comparisons in the past thirty years, but descriptions and discussions of the new measures have been scattered in unpublished or inaccessible papers.

International and Interarea Comparisons of Income, Output, and Prices includes discussions of developments in the United Nations International Comparison Program, the largest effort in this field, and in the ICOP program on the production side, including efforts in both to extend the comparisons to the formerly planned economies. Other papers in this volume explore new programs on interspatial comparisons within the United States. There are also theoretical papers on how interspatial comparisons should be made and several examples of uses of such comparisons.

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International and Language Education for a Global Future

Fifty Years of U.S. Title VI and Fulbright-Hays Programs

David S. Wiley

Michigan State University Press, 2010

The contributions to this book address the role that the U.S. Department of Education Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs have played in building the largest and highest quality infrastructure in the world for training in languages and other aspects of foreign area knowledge. The volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Title VI and associated Fulbright-Hays programs, which have established more than 150 centers of excellence for modern foreign language and area studies and international business education in more than 60 U.S. universities.
The authors review the history of the programs, including their founding and their cumulative impacts on internationalizing the American university at the graduate and undergraduate levels. They review how programs for foreign research, technology for foreign information access, and undergraduate programs have built the foundations of U.S. language-learning materials for use in college courses and government with improved language-learning pedagogies, erected the most distinguished library holdings on foreign countries, supported in-depth research abroad in virtually every nation, and created capacity to teach more than 200 less commonly taught languages.

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Investing in the Homeland

Migration, Social Ties, and Foreign Firms

Benjamin A.T. Graham

University of Michigan Press, 2019

Once viewed as a “brain drain,” migrants are increasingly viewed as a resource for promoting economic development back in their home countries. In Investing in the Homeland, Benjamin Graham finds that diasporans—migrants and their descendants—play a critical role in linking foreign firms to social networks in developing countries, allowing firms to flourish even in challenging political environments most foreign investors shun.

Graham’s analysis draws on new data from face-to-face interviews with the managers of over 450 foreign firms operating in two developing countries: Georgia and the Philippines. Diaspora-owned and diaspora-managed firms are better connected than other foreign firms and they use social ties to resolve disputes and influence government policy. At the same time, Graham shows that diaspora-affiliated firms are no more socially responsible than their purely foreign peers—at root, they are profit-seeking enterprises, not development NGOs. Graham identifies implications for policymakers seeking to capture the development potential of diaspora investment and for managers of multinational firms who want to harness diasporans as a source of sustained competitive advantage.

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Invisible China

How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise

Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell

University of Chicago Press, 2020

As the glittering skyline in Shanghai seemingly attests, China has quickly transformed itself from a place of stark poverty into a modern, urban, technologically savvy economic powerhouse. But as Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell show in Invisible China, the truth is much more complicated and might be a serious cause for concern.

China’s growth has relied heavily on unskilled labor. Most of the workers who have fueled the country’s rise come from rural villages and have never been to high school. While this national growth strategy has been effective for three decades, the unskilled wage rate is finally rising, inducing companies inside China to automate at an unprecedented rate and triggering an exodus of companies seeking cheaper labor in other countries. Ten years ago, almost every product for sale in an American Walmart was made in China. Today, that is no longer the case. With the changing demand for labor, China seems to have no good back-up plan. For all of its investment in physical infrastructure, for decades China failed to invest enough in its people. Recent progress may come too late. Drawing on extensive surveys on the ground in China, Rozelle and Hell reveal that while China may be the second-largest economy in the world, its labor force has one of the lowest levels of education of any comparable country. Over half of China’s population—as well as a vast majority of its children—are from rural areas. Their low levels of basic education may leave many unable to find work in the formal workplace as China’s economy changes and manufacturing jobs move elsewhere.

In Invisible China, Rozelle and Hell speak not only to an urgent humanitarian concern but also a potential economic crisis that could upend economies and foreign relations around the globe. If too many are left structurally unemployable, the implications both inside and outside of China could be serious. Understanding the situation in China today is essential if we are to avoid a potential crisis of international proportions. This book is an urgent and timely call to action that should be read by economists, policymakers, the business community, and general readers alike.

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