The Fourth International Conference on New Structural Economics

December 9-10, 2017, Beijing, P.R. China

Structural Transformation, Infrastructure Investment, and Economic Development

Infrastructure, including tangible infrastructure (such as highways, airports, and telecommunication systems) and intangible infrastructure (such as institutions, regulations, and value system), is one of the central factors in increasing economies’ productivity and improving communities’ life quality. Providing infrastructure to meet the demand of households and firms is one of the major challenges faced by developing countries. New Structural Economics thinks that a main task of governments is to construct infrastructure, aiming at facilitating economic development. During economic transition in particular, improvement of infrastructure could remove obstacles for industrial upgrading, incubate new comparative advantages and achieve sustainable high-speed economic growth.

In order to advance the frontier thinking on infrastructure, industrial upgrading and economic growth in developing countries, the Fourth International Conference on New Structural Economics at Peking University welcomes submissions on the following topics:

• What are the underlying mechanisms that infrastructure lowers production costs and transaction costs across different industries? What types of infrastructure do economies need under the circumstances of industrialization and deindustrialization? And how should governments choose different tangible and intangible infrastructure to coordinate with different economic structures?
• How does infrastructure facilitate industrial upgrading and economical structural change? Why infrastructure insufficiency becomes a major constraint of economic growth in many developing countries? 
• What kinds of monetary policies and fiscal policies could governments use to accelerate the progress of infrastructure advancement? How do such policies change with business cycle and different stages of economic development? What are the optimal levels of infrastructure investments?And how do public sectors and private sectors collaborate in infrastructure construction?  
• What are the major challenges faced by developing countries in investing in infrastructure? How do foreign investments and international aid help developing countries in infrastructure construction?

Paper Submission:
Authors are invited to submit the full paper via email (nseconference@nsd.pku.edu.cn)  by October 10, 2017. Submissions must be original and should not have been published previously or be under consideration for publication while being evaluated for this conference. 

Important Dates:
Final Manuscript Due: October 10, 2017
Paper Status Notification: October 27, 2017

The conference will be held at Peking University in Beijing from December 9 to December 10, 2017.

This conference is also sponsored byJournal of Infrastructure, Policy and Development.This journal is a new kind of peer-refereed academic journal that covers the whole range of infrastructure. All selected conference papers will be encouraged (not required) to publish as a special issue of Journal of Infrastructure, Policy and Development.

An economic class air travel (or second class train for local participants) and accommodation will be covered by the organizer.

 

The Center for New Structural Economics at Peking University

August 2017