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H K U S T
Prof Lui served as a member of the Population Policy Steering Committee, headed
by Ms Carrie Lam, Chief Secretary for Administration of the HKSAR Government.
PROF FRANCIS TING MING LUI
Professor of Economics, and Director,
HKUST Center for Economic Development
“Many local government officials do not have the incentive
to work as hard or as entrepreneurially as before. This has
been seen as one of the reasons for the slowdown in the
Chinese economy. There has been a great deal of talk of the
lack of lubricant, serving as a support to the theory generated
in my original paper.”
Long-term Growth
His objective to understand the factors determining China’s
long-term economic growth – the country’s per capita real GDP
increase of 21 times since 1978 is unprecedented – and assist
policy-making has also led to exploration of demographic transi-
tion and incentives to human capital investment conditions.
Prof Lui has looked at the implications of the low fertility
rates in Hong Kong and major cities in China (“Demographic
Transition, Childless Families and Economic Growth”,
The
Economic Consequences of Demographic Change in East Asia
[2010]). By 2006, the total fertility rate in Hong Kong was less
than one and the proportion of 41- to 44-year-old women with
no children was almost 31.8% (39.3% in 2011). Based on data
from Mainland China’s 2005 one percent population census, he
forecast that up to 25% of women in some major Chinese cities,
such as Beijing and Shanghai would remain childless by the age
of 45.
The canceling of the one-child policy is a good move in his
view, though he is less hopeful that the new policy of allowing
two children will work. “If you look at the cities in China, many
women decide to have zero children. So whether it is a quota of
one or two doesn’t matter. They would prefer to raise a dog or cat
or even a goldfish rather than children.”
There has now been a realization that the
current anti-corruption campaign in China has
met with difficulties and the economy appears
to have stopped working efficiently
