Friday, November 19th, 2021
9:30 – 11:00 a.m. ET
via Zoom

The Institute for International Economic Policy was pleased to invite you to the third event in the 14th annual Conference on China’s Economic Development and U.S.-China Economic Relations. This year, the conference took place as a virtual series. The conference was co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the GW Center for International Business Education and Research (GW-CIBER).

This event featured Fudan University’s Jun Qian discussing “How is the Roll Out of Digital RMB Changing the Financial System in China and Abroad?” Martin Chorzempa of the Peterson Institute for International Economics provided discussant remarks. IIEP’s Maggie Chen provided welcoming remarks.

The rapid development of mobile electronic devices and softwares is leading our life towards a “cashless society,” and is redefining cross-border payment systems by making small value and high frequency transactions much more accessible than before. Digital currencies began with only non-sovereign cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and stable coins USDT, issued by anonymous and private institutions, but has evolved to a “dual-tier system” after Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) emerged. Currently, all major central banks around the globe are either in the process of launching, or proactively researching on their own CBDC. China is leading the way with its  CBDC roll-out (digital RMB, or e-CNY), issued by the People’s Bank of China (PBC)). The digital RMB has been issued and used in an increasing number of large cities and multiple consumption scenes.

About the Speaker

Professor Jun Qian is currently a Professor of Finance and Executive Dean at Fanhai International School of Finance (FISF), Fudan University.

Prior to joining FISF, he was Professor of Finance at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Director of the DBA/EMBA/EE programs; he was also the Deputy Director of China Academy of Financial Research. Before returning to China in 2013, he was a tenured finance professor at the Carroll School of Management, Boston College.

Professor Qian’s research interests span many topics of corporate finance, financial institutions and capital markets. His research papers have been published in top academic journals including the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies and Journal of International Economics. One of his best known papers, published in the Journal of Financial Economics in 2005, is elected an “All-Star” paper based on its large number of citations. He also contributed book chapters on developing financial systems, including China’s Great Economic Transformation, Emerging Giants: China and India in the World Economy, China’s Emerging Financial Markets: Challenges and Opportunities, and Global Perspectives of Rule of Law.

Professor Qian is an Associate Editor of Frontiers of Economics in China and was on the editorial board of Review of Finance. He is a Research Fellow at the Financial Institutions Center of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He has also been on the organizing committee of the China International Conference in Finance, the best academic finance conference in Asia, since its inception, and served as conference Co-Chair during 2008-2010. In addition, he was one of the academic advisors for The Chinese Finance Association, the largest organization for Chinese finance practitioners in the U.S. He also served as a visiting or special-term professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, the Wharton School, School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Shanghai National Accounting Institute.

Professor Qian received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000, and his B.S. degree in economics from University of Iowa. He also enrolled at Department of International Economics, Fudan University as an undergraduate.

About the Discussant

Martin Chorzempa, senior fellow since January 2021, joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics as a research fellow in 2017. He gained expertise in financial innovation while in Germany as a Fulbright Scholar and researcher at the Association of German Banks. He conducted research on financial liberalization in Beijing, first as a Luce Scholar at Peking University’s China Center for Economic Research and then at the China Finance 40 Forum, China’s leading independent think tank. In 2017, he graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government with a masters in public administration in international development. He is working on a forthcoming book on fintech in China. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, MIT Technology Review, and Foreign Affairs.

Welcoming Remarks

Maggie Chen is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at George Washington University. She has served as Director of GW’s Institute for International Economic Policy and worked as an economist in the research department of the World Bank and a consultant for the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. Professor Chen’s research areas include multinational firms, international trade, and regional trade agreements. Her work has been published in academic journals such as the Review of Economics and Statistics, American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Journal of International Economics, and Journal of Development Economics. She is a co-editor of Economic Inquiry and an associate editor of Economic Modeling.