1. Brief Review of Lecture 4 on the Japanese Economy
--- The Japanese economy is growing faster now than in the past. Currently, the annualized QoQ growth is very high at a 6.7% rate for 2014 Q1. This is expected to fall greatly in the next quarter due to the effect of the consumption tax rise. A more realistic but optimistic estimate of 2014 growth in Japan would be about 1.5% - 2%.
--- The unemployment rate has ticked up recently from 3.5% to 3.7%, but this may be due to people entering the workforce because jobs are becoming available.
--- Japanese productivity showed very strong growth from 2013, but fell considerably in April, recovering slightly in May.
--- Inflation has shown signs of falling again into a deflationary mode with June data. This is perhaps surprising.
--- The Deficit to GDP ratio fell indicating that output growth has been stronger than the rise in government spending

2. --- The industrial production index for Japan fell a surprising 3
--- The industrial production index for Japan fell a surprising 3.3 % in June and this has led to speculation that Abenomics may not be working well and that the Japanese economy might be moving back to stalled growth. The IPI in the next month in August will be very important.
--- Japan’s current account to GDP has been falling steadily since 2008 from 4.8 % to 0.7 %. Imports have grown faster than exports since However, exports have taken off after 2013 due to a weakening yen. Energy imports have hampered policies to revive the country.
--- Japan faces enormous difficulties in implementing structural reforms to agriculture, bankruptcy laws, market opening measures, and labor market reforms. Also, there are the issues of whether to return to nuclear power, how to stimulate new births, how to deal with debts, health care, and an ageing population, as well as how to deal with a more strident China. See Haidar and Hoshi 2014

3. Lecture 5 on The Chinese Economy 1st Hour

4. Recent Developments in the Chinese Economy
(1) Real Economic Growth and Productivity
(2) Unemployment and Labor Market Conditions
(3) Inflation and Asset Prices
(4) Trade and Manufacturing

5. Summary of the Chinese Economy March 2016
(1-a) China's Real Economic Growth and Productivity

7. (1-b) China's Real Economic Growth and Productivity

9. (2) China's Unemployment and Labor Market Conditions

10. (2) China's Unemployment and Labor Market Conditions

11. (3) China's Inflation and Asset Prices

14. (4) China's Trade and Manufacturing

15. (4) China's Trade and Manufacturing (continued)

18. China's unemployment rate, for instance, is almost always low
China's unemployment rate, for instance, is almost always low. And it doesn't fluctuate much. In December, the official Chinese rate was 4.1 percent. It's remained between 4 percent and 4.3 percent since But the CIA notes that China doesn't count among its unemployed the migrants who flock to Chinese cities in search of work. Once you include them, China's unemployment rate looks more like 9 percent.

19. China’s Youth Unemployment Rate is especially worrisome
China’s Youth Unemployment Rate is especially worrisome. Not everybody that Goes to University Get a Job.
Source: China Household Finance Survey in 2012 
The Graph Above Indicates that Getting Educated Does Not Help the Average Student

20. Most Countries are Not like China ,,, for example ... the US
Data Here is People for 25 Years and Older whereas China’s Data is for People Years of Age.

21. China began in 1991 increasing its fixed investment and reducing its consumption as a percentage of GDP – rebalancing has not really begun

22. China’s Consumer Confidence Data is Looking More and More Choppy and Uncertain. But the most recent trend has been up.
In China, the consumer confidence index is based on a survey of 700 individuals over 15 years old from 20 cities all over the country. This composite index covers the consumer expectation and consumer satisfaction index, thus measures the consumers' degree of satisfaction about the current economic situation and expectation on the future economic trend. The Index measures consumer confidence on a scale of 0 to 200, where 200 indicate extreme optimism, 0 extreme pessimism and 100 neutrality.

23. Lecture 5 on The Chinese Economy 2nd Hour

24. In China, the housing index is measured by year over year change in house prices in 70 medium and large cities. Housing prices began to fall in 2014 and continued through 2015 but began to rise again in 2016.

25. China’s Ghost Cities Continue to Worry the World
This Isn’t Paris

26. All the Houses are Sold but No One is Living in Them -- Yet

27. If You Build It They Will Come – Right?

28. Recent BBC video on the Chinese Economy March 2016

29. Ghost Cities Analysis Based on Positioning Data in China
Yu Liu, Zhengwei Wu, Haishan Wu
November 2015
The fast urbanization of China has contributed so many housing built that has outstripped the actual demand. Whether the so called “ghost cities” reported by media have a high housing vacancy has always been disputed for the lack of data to verify. As far as we are concerned, we use big data to analyze the real situation of “ghost cities” in China for the first time. The features of national spatial scale, long temporal scale, and high precision of Baidu big data make the study of “ghost cities” representative and reliable. Instead of just counting the number of homes with light at night in certain residential areas as the indicator of “ghost city”, Baidu big data can count the population precisely, in real time, and in national scale. A limitation of the data is that it cannot represent the real demography of a city because not all people are Baidu users. However, with the ubiquity of smart mobile phones, Baidu users occupy the most proportion of the whole population. Moreover, the quality of residential area POIs will affect our results. We make a series of processing to make sure that the POIs are reliable. Baidu big data bring opportunities to objectively understand the status or even reasons of "ghost cities.”
Based on the Baidu positioning data and residential area POI data, we design an algorithm to discover the vacant housing areas. The results discovered the specific location of vacant housing areas, which can help government make smarter and more reasonable decisions. Our results provide the real situation of the so called “ghost cities” in China. Cities with a large vacant housing area are mostly second-­‐tier and third-­‐tier cities. The tiers of cities in China are determined by their income, education, transportation, technology and other indicators. East provinces have more proportion of cities with vacant housing areas. We also distinguish the tourism sites and cities. Based on Baidu positioning data, we discover the human dynamic in cities with a large vacant housing area to help better understand the situation in “ghost cities.”