What factors contributed to China becoming an economic powerhouse?
Research Question: I would like to breakdown China’s economic progress and discuss year by year how they achieved their economic status. I would also like to elaborate on the two main factors which consist of large-scale capital investment and rapid productivity growth.
Potential Answer: My potential answer will consist of me discussing Labor supply, Political system, their strong leadership, and free market economics.
Relevant Theoretical / Empirical Literature: I will use the WSJ and other economic data bases that are relevant towards the countries economic progress. I would also like provide an analysis how possibly the rise of the economics in China can reflect on America declining as a great power.
There’s no “puzzle” here. This would simply be an economic history of China’s rise. You need to think about how you can make this a research question that you can answer.
But I think there might be a way to make an interesting project out of this.
How about a comparative analysis of China and India? There are lots of theories of development. One is that democracies do “better.” Clearly, these cases would imply differently. And China seems to want to offer an alternative model to “free market capitalism” with it own “state controlled market economy.” India was actually late to the party in embracing economic liberalization, but in the past decade or so has attempted to do so.
So a research question might look like this: Given their respective recent economic trajectories, how can we explain the divergence in outcomes between China and India’s economic growth? You could dive into the recent economic histories of both (say since the 1990s). Posit that India is a democracy (which may have both advantages and disadvantages for a developing country) and China is a single party state that can make longer-term decisions (but with costs for society). And figure out why China has done better – but maybe whether it will continue to without change?