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Understand the outside world:Knowledge, theory, and practice
Fu JunPeking University
Contents
KnowledgeTheoryPracticeInvestment
Objectives
(1) How better to communicate effectively with the outside world?
(2) An attempt to provide an overarching framework to choose, learn, understand and leverage functional knowledge and expertise to maximize performance (investment)
(3) Comments on portfolio investment v. foreign direct investment, and on anti-trust implications
“We go about our daily lives understanding almost nothing of the world.”
-- Stephen Hawking
Arguably the greatest theoretical physicist since Einstein
Knowledge
• Knowledge: Stock + Additions
• Knowledge changes/expands every day
• Have we become smarter as individuals?
• Collective v. individual memories
• Languages/signs: vehicles of knowledge
• Chinese and English
Knowledge
What is university ( 大学 )?3 functions: to store, convey, and produce knowledge
What does knowledge structure mean?Let’s look at how universities organize disciplinary knowledge
Why is this question important?To better know how people think and act knowing their training
Knowledge
Why world-class universities pursue liberal arts education (instead of specialization) for undergraduate students?
What is in 文科 aside from sciences and engineering?
Humanities + Social sciences Difference between humanities and social sciences Political science: about hierarchies Economics: about markets (methodological individualism) Sociology: socialization of individuals (constructivism)
Implications for the faculty composition of business schools as well as for the composition of board of advisors of business organizations
Knowledge
What is the core of knowledge production? Graduate School of Arts and Sciences = depth of disciplinary knowledge
Why PhDs instead of doctors? Theories and applications
Why undergraduates can directly apply for PhD but not MBA programs? The relationship between academic departments and practical schools – nor
mal distribution of knowledge sensitized to normal distribution of population
The story of Socrates (graduate seminars/undergraduate lectures) What is philosophy! Knowing the difference!
Knowledge
What to learn: knowledge, skills, and critical thinking
Theology v. Science v. Confucius
Physics v. metaphysics
Philosophy again! Epistemology and ontology
Inductive v. deductive approaches
Knowledge - Theory
• Three-level approach to understand the world
• Operational – observations (collectivism v. individualism)
• Substantive - causal mechanisms (culture v. institutions)
• Generic – theory ( 行而上为道 ; 行而下为器 )
Theory
• Normative v. empirical theories• Systematic v. ad hoc approaches• The necessity of basic assumption of human nature• Theorizing: from assumption to hypothesis• Falsification and the necessity of a prior definition -- economic person ( 3 key elements ) self-interested + rational + utility-maximization
Stock market investment – China and New York
3 functions of theory: describe, explain, predict3 measures of theory: parsimony, scope, accuracy
Theory/practice
Theory and practice
-- practice/theory/practice – inductive approach -- theory/practice/theory – deductive approach
Einstein Newton Galileo Ronald Coase
We only have partial theories!
Investment
What is investment?
”Capital requires exchange over time. To form capital, people save. Withholding goods from consumption in one period, people invest, such that they can enhance their consumption in the future periods. It is the prospect of rewards that motivates present sacrifices. Lying in the future, the prospective rewards are uncertain, however. “
– Robert Bates, Harvard University
The risk of investment without non-market institutions – the issue of political economy
“economic markets are frequently very imperfect, beset by high transaction costs and defined by institutions that produce incentives that work against economic efficiency. Indeed, creating institutions that provide low costs of transacting in economic markets is the key issue to creating productive economies.”
-- Douglas North, Nobel laureate in economics
Investment
• Portfolio investment v. direct investment
• Foreign direct investment (why it is beyond the issue of mere capital?)
• Modalities of direct investment (M&A) vertical and horizontal, and the fix of both • Why not trade but investment Back to Ronald Coase’s classic question of why the boundary between the administr
ative allocation of resources within the firm and the market allocation of resources between firm falls where it does.
Investment
• The concept of spread
• The concept of firm-specific assets (hard or soft technology)
• The concept of the value-chain of production
• The concept of ceteris paribus
• The concept of extra cost of going overseas
• The concept of the radius between supply and demand
Investment
The theoretical prediction of capital flow from capital rich to capital poor countries
The reality of FDI flows within advanced countries, why?
Institutional differences, costs, and risks!
Investment
The market approach and non-market (administrative) approach to firm-specific assets (advantages, technology)
The concept of global hierarch of technology (hard and soft) – implications for where you go for overseas investment – to explain destinations of investment (direct and indirect) outflows of Taiwan, Hong Kong, etc., and now mainland China.
Investment
FDI in China cultural v. non-cultural explanations
non-variable v. variables
3 modalities of investment
contractual joint ventures
equity joint ventures
100% foreign owned subsidiaries
The theoretic logic and empirical trends over time
Investment – anti-trust implications
• The economic logic of perfect competition and implications for technology innovations
• Ultimate driver of economic growth
• The problem of monopoly and implications for the welfare of consumers
• Implications of oligarchies for competition and innovation
• Market concentration and measurement problems
• Per se ruling and rule of reason
A cautionary note
• The assumption of the nature of modern corporate firms
• The collective rationality v. individual rationality: the corporate governance issue
• The economic logic of corporate social responsibilities
A suggestion
What to learn?
From generic to specific:
(1) A generic epistemic framework sensitive to Chinese and non-Chinese
(2) The economic logic of investment (overseas) within the firm
(3) Contextual issues both domestically and overseas (that may be country-specific)
Thank you
Q&A