Yuen Yuen Ang, AGI Senior Fellow and Alfred Chandler Chair Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins, is recently quoted in CNBC on the logic behind China's state funding of innovation and technology using government guiding funds (GGFs).
Yuen Yuen Ang described China’s innovation drive as a “spray and pray” approach that produces enormous output but with a high failure rate,” and judged less by efficiency than by whether it produces a few real champions.
The Dreame episode fits “a recurring phase in a familiar policy cycle: mobilize toward a national priority, tolerate significant gaming of targets and waste, then course correct,” she said.
We describe China’s innovation drive as ‘enormous in scale but low in productivity’ — a ‘spray and pray’ approach that produces enormous output but with a high failure rate.
To learn more, read Ang's work on "China Low-Productivity Innovation Drive" and "China's Economic Paradox".
Senior Fellow, Asia Global Institute
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The University of Hong Kong
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