Uncovering the economic framework that explains China's 400-year stagnation and its path to modern transformation.
In 1700 China's output per person sat at ninety-nine percent of the world average. By 1952 it was twenty-three percent. That collapse is the subject of this three-part series, and the explanation is not the one most histories give.
This first course builds the analytical tools before it touches the history, because the argument the series makes about China cannot be judged by anyone who has not been handed the means to judge it. It opens with scarcity, opportunity cost, and the three questions every society must answer. It then compares how command and market systems answer them, and it treats the failure of central planning as a structural problem rather than a moral one. A planning board of honest, capable officials with a fast computer still fails, and the course explains precisely why, through the economic calculation problem, the knowledge problem, and the arithmetic of effort and reward. It gives equal attention to what competition actually does, including the half of the price mechanism people usually forget, which is the role of losses in shutting bad ideas down.
A short section on measurement follows, covering what GDP counts, the three ways of counting it, what it leaves out, and why real and nominal figures tell different stories.
The final part turns to China before 1949 and sets a puzzle. By the standards the course has just established, the traditional Chinese economy performs well. Markets were competitive, entry and exit were easy, land and labor were mobile, and production was efficient. It should have industrialized. It did not. Mark Elvin's high-level equilibrium trap supplies the answer, and the closing lesson is that efficiency tells you how well you are using the technology you already have, and nothing about whether you will ever get a better one.
The hour closes on the eve of 1949, with a country at twenty-three percent of the world average about to adopt, deliberately, the system this course has just scored an F.
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
Apply opportunity cost to a resource allocation decision and distinguish the cost of a choice from its accounting price.
Identify the three fundamental economic questions in a real policy setting and name the mechanism answering each.
Explain why central planning fails on structural grounds, citing the calculation problem, the knowledge problem, and the incentive arithmetic, rather than attributing failure to the character of planners.
Distinguish allocative from productive efficiency and diagnose which one a given economy has failed.
Interpret real and nominal GDP figures correctly and state what GDP does not measure.
Explain the high-level equilibrium trap and why an efficient economy can fail to industrialize.
Audience:
Accountants, lawyers, financial professionals, engineers, and anyone required to complete continuing professional development who wants a rigorous treatment of economic systems rather than a survey.
Associate Professor of Economics | King's University College at Western
Dr. Jason Dean Economics Professor and Applied Economist Dr. Jason Dean is an Associate Professor of Economics at King’s University College at Western University. He teaches economics to university students and working professionals, drawing on experience in academic research, economic consulting and public policy. His CPD courses explain how changes in inflation, interest rates and employment affect businesses and their clients. Jason works through the reasoning behind these relationships so learners can interpret economic news, question forecasts and understand the assumptions behind a policy recommendation. Before joining King’s, Jason worked as an associate and health economist at Analysis Group and as an economic research analyst at CEP News. His consulting work contributed to published studies of healthcare costs and treatment outcomes. He has also taught economics to CPA students at Sheridan College. Jason’s teaching career has taken him across Canada, Japan and China. In 2024, he was a visiting professor in Canadian Studies at Kwansei Gakuin University in Japan, where he taught Canadian Business Culture and Canadian Economic History. He taught Labour Economics at Wuhan University of Technology and Labour Economics and International Trade and Finance at Renmin University in Beijing. His experience teaching in China prompted him to develop his Economics of China course at King’s. His Canadian teaching experience also includes Wilfrid Laurier University, McMaster University Continuing Education and McGill University. Beyond the classroom, Jason has delivered presentations on practical uses of artificial intelligence for Haver Analytics, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Toronto Association for Business and Economics. His topics have included economists’ productivity, copyright and privacy. He has contributed assessment questions and digital learning activities to economics teaching materials for McGraw-Hill and Pearson. His research examines questions with consequences for households and employers: What happens when immigrants cannot find work related to their education? How does a fall in income affect a renter’s ability to move? Do Canadian housing and stock markets share a long-run relationship? His work has appeared in journals including Applied Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Cliometrica and the Journal of Housing Economics. As an associate researcher with the Montreal Economic Institute, Jason studies how taxes and benefit reductions affect the financial return to work. His policy publications address the circumstances of low-income seniors, people taking a second job and workers moving off income assistance. He has provided media commentary on housing, labour markets and the Canadian economy. Jason holds a PhD in Economics from McGill University, an MA in Economics from the University of Guelph and an Honours BBA from Wilfrid Laurier University. MONTREAL ECONOMIC INSTITUTE — RESEARCH REPORTS • “End Penalties That Punish Low-Income Seniors Who Work” (2026), with the collaboration of Gabriel Giguère. • “The Benefits of Eliminating the Middle-Income Tax Bracket” (2025), with the collaboration of Emmanuelle B. Faubert. • “Full-Time Struggle and Two-Job Juggle: A Tax Holiday for Canadians to Fight Rising Costs” (2024), with the collaboration of Renaud Brossard. • “Canada’s Welfare Wall: Enhancing the CWB for Full-Time Employment” (2023), with the collaboration of Renaud Brossard. • “Labour Shortages: Helping a Trapped Pool of Potential Workers Help Themselves” (2023), with the collaboration of Célia Pinto Moreira. POLICY COMMENTARY • “It’s time to give the middle class a real tax break.” The Hamilton Spectator, March 17, 2025. • “Hey Ottawa, workers with two jobs could use a break.” The Hamilton Spectator, January 13, 2024. • “Workers Benefit not working for workers.” Financial Post, May 4, 2023. PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH — ECONOMICS • Dilmaghani, M., and Dean, J. “Sexual orientation and intra-household specialization before and after the legal recognition of same-sex marriage in Canada.” Applied Economics, 56(29), 3460–3484 (2024). • Singh, A., McFarlane, A., Dean, J., and Erenburg, G. “Are Canadian Residential Real Estate and Stock Markets Segmented or Integrated?” Empirical Economics Letters, 23(7) (2024). • Dean, J., and Steele, M. “Income decline, financial insecurity, landlord screening and renter mobility.” Regional Science and Urban Economics, 95, 103797 (2022). • Dean, J., and Geloso, V. “The linguistic wage gap in Quebec, 1901 to 1951.” Cliometrica, 16, 615–637 (2022). • Dilmaghani, M., and Dean, J. “Sexual orientation and homeownership in Canada.” Journal of Housing Economics, 49, 101688 (2020). • Dean, J. “Does it matter if immigrants work in jobs related to their education?” IZA Journal of Development and Migration, 8, Article 7 (2018). • Dilmaghani, M., and Dean, J. “Labor Market Attainment of Canadian Jews During the First Two Decades of the 20th Century.” Contemporary Jewry, 38, 49–77 (2018). • Dean, J., and Dilmaghani, M. “Economic Integration of Pre-WWI Immigrants from the British Isles in the Canadian Labour Market.” Journal of International Migration and Integration, 17(1), 55–76 (2016). • Dilmaghani, M., and Dean, J. “Religiosity and female labour market attainment in Canada: the Protestant exception.” International Journal of Social Economics, 43(3), 244–262 (2016). COAUTHORED RESEARCH — HEALTH ECONOMICS AND OUTCOMES • “Systematic review of long-acting injectables versus oral atypical antipsychotics on hospitalization in schizophrenia.” Current Medical Research and Opinion, 30(8), 1643–1655 (2014). • “Burden of schizophrenia on selected comorbidity costs.” Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research, 14(2), 259–267 (2014). • “Impact of omalizumab on emergency-department visits, hospitalizations, and corticosteroid use among patients with uncontrolled asthma.” Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, 109(1), 59–64 (2012). OTHER RESEARCH REPORTS • Dean, J., and Dilmaghani, M. “Religious Diversity and Labour Market Attainment: Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, 1911–2011.” Atlantic Research Group on Economics of Immigration, Aging and Diversity (2015).
