Michael Pettis's Blog

Senior Associate

Michael Pettis is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a finance professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, where he specializes in Chinese financial markets. He has taught, from 2002 to 2004, at Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management and, from 1992 to 2001, at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He is also Chief Strategist at Shenyin Wanguo Securities (HK).

Pettis has worked on Wall Street in trading, capital markets, and corporate finance since 1987, when he joined the Sovereign Debt trading team at Manufacturers Hanover (now JP Morgan). Most recently, from 1996 to 2001, Pettis worked at Bear Stearns, where he was Managing Director-Principal heading the Latin American Capital Markets and the Liability Management groups. He has also worked as a partner in a merchant banking boutique that specialized in securitizing Latin American assets and at Credit Suisse First Boston, where he headed the emerging markets trading team. Besides trading and capital markets, Pettis has been involved in sovereign advisory work, including for the Mexican government on the privatization of its banking system, the Republic of Macedonia on the restructuring of its international bank debt, and the South Korean Ministry of Finance on the restructuring of the country’s commercial bank debt.

Pettis is a member of the Institute of Latin American Studies Advisory Board at Columbia University as well as the Dean’s Advisory Board at the School of Public and International Affairs. He received an MBA in Finance in 1984 and an MIA in Development Economics in 1981, both from Columbia University.

China: The Ten Year Adjustment Process to Slower Growth

I have been arguing for several years that once China begins the adjustment process, which I expect to characterize the ten-year period of the current administration, growth rates must slow significantly. My expectation for long-term growth is that it shouldn’t average much above 3-4% annually.

Feedback Loops

Early this month Martin Wolf had another of his very interesting articles, this time on China, which I think suggests some of the concerns we must have about the upcoming adjustment.

The Challenges for China’s New Leadership

The 2013 NPC and CPPCC Annual Sessions have ended with the formal selection of China’s new leaders. Not surprisingly there were few surprises. My quick take is that the leadership is saying all the right things, but they have been saying these things for quite a while – nearly two years in the case of Li Keqiang, the new premier.

When Do We Call it a Solvency Crisis?

A sovereign solvency crisis always begins with many years of assurances from policymakers in both the creditor and the debtor nations that the problem can be resolved with time, confidence, and a just few more debt rollovers.

A Brief History of the Chinese Growth Model

As regular readers know I have often argued that the Chinese development model is an old one, and can trace its roots at least as far back as the “American System” of the 1820s and 1830s.

10 Things to Watch for 2013

One way or the other, in other words, the world will rebalance. But there are worse ways and better ways it can do so. Large trade surpluses can decline, for example, because exports fall, or they can decline because imports rise.

Recognizing the Need for Economic Adjustment

In China, I have argued many times, high growth is no longer compatible with a strengthening balance sheet. If China is growing at a rate that approaches or exceeds five or six percent, it is probably a safe bet that debt is rising faster than debt servicing capacity.

The IMF on Overinvestment

I think over the next few years China will indeed undergo a sharp contraction in investment growth, but my point here is simply to suggest that even under the most optimistic of scenarios it will be very hard to keep investment growth high.

Three Cheers for the New Data?

The big news in the past two weeks has been the slew of economic data suggesting that China has firmly turned the corner on its economic closedown. Growth is up, investment is up, and inflation is down.

Is There An Asian RMB Bloc?

In the past two weeks we have been treated with a mostly positive but nonetheless mixed bag of economic data from China. There has been good news, bad news, good news with worrying underlying trends, and bad news with silver linings.

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