Category：Social Sciences & Economics

大国大城：当代中国的统一、发展与平衡
Great Nation Needs Bigger City

By LU Ming

●Great Nation Needs Bigger City is a comprehensive presentation about the research results of Professor Lu Ming’s work in many years. It focuses on the realistic issues in the current process of urban and rural economic development in China.

The urbanization process in China has only been half-way through but the problems in the big cities and in the country side are coming into the public spotlight. Comparing the current situations in China with global experiences, based on the local realities and practical theories, the author argues strongly about the importance of developing big cities in China. He also pays special attention to the path of development of Shanghai, systematically analyzing the advantages of big cities for the individuals, the communities and for the entire nation. It is only when allowing the market to have its full influences on labor force and other social production factors, the difficult contemporary social issues can be resolved thoroughly. The focuses of the government functions should be put on the aspects where the market cannot cast its influences, for instance, the infrastructures and public services.

Through this book, the author tries to call for the cancellation of the restrictions against free flows of the domestic population, and to advocate the development of big cities in order to help the urbanization process in China speed up. Only through aggregation, only through pursuing the balancing of the per capita GDP instead of the regional GDP, the economic developments can be truly balanced, which will eventually benefit the nation and its people greatly.

Author
Lu Ming, distinguished professor at Antai College of Economics & Management, executive dean of Shanghai Institute for National Economy, at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He has been awarded as Changjiang Scholar by the Ministry of Education of China, and has been working as a researcher at China Institute for Urban Governance and Shanghai Institute of International Finance Center, and as a member of China Finance 40 Forum. He once worked as a Fulbrighter scholar at Havard University and at NBER, a guest professor at Fudan University, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics and many other universities, a consultant expert for the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.