On May 27, 2026, the Eighth Annual Conference of Government and Economics, co-organized by the Society for the Analysis of Government and Economics (SAGE) in partnership with Tsinghua University's School of Social Sciences and the Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking (ACCEPT), was broadcasted online.
Guest speakers participating in the conference included Eric S. Maskin, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences, Adams University Professor of Economics at Harvard University; Yuval Noah Harari, Professor of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind; Dong Zhiyong, Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and Vice President of Peking University, Professor and Dean of the School of Economics at Peking University and Editor-in-Chief of Economic Science; Zheng Jianghuai, Dean of Nanjing University's School of Economics; Qiu Bin, Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute of International Economics at Southeast University; Li Tao, Vice President of the Central University of Finance and Economics; Zhang Zhiming, Vice President of the Inner Mongolia University of Finance and Economics; Yang Yuzhen, Vice President of Henan Normal University; Fan Shide, Professor and Dean of Nanjing Audit University's School of Economics; David Daokui Li, Co-President of SAGE, Director of ACCEPT, Editor-in-Chief of Research on Government and Economics; Liu Peilin, Chief Researcher of ACCEPT and Co-Director of the Institute of Government and Market Economics at Zhejiang University's Center for Regional Coordinated Development. Wang Hongwei, Vice President of Tsinghua University, delivered opening remarks to kickstart the event, with the remainder of the conference proceedings moderated by Li Ke'aobo, Executive Deputy Director of ACCEPT.
Wang Hongwei highlighted that 2026 marks ten years since General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered his congratulatory letter to Tsinghua University during the university's 105th anniversary and five years since his important speech commemorating the university on its 110th anniversary while conducting an inspection tour of the campus. The General Secretary proposed to go a step further in refining some of our typical approaches, including forging ahead in establishing new concepts, typologies and formulations that are easier to comprehend and accept internationally, leading the way within the international academic community by convening related research symposia, and encouraging institutions focusing on philosophy and the social sciences to participate in setting up academic organizations of an international character. In 2022, Xi further suggested accelerating the institutionalization of philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics, ultimately with an aim towards bringing into being an independent Chinese knowledge system.
Following its establishment eight years ago, the ACCEPT research institute at Tsinghua University has continuously strived to develop an independent knowledge system in accordance with China's own economic practices and with widespread applicability to the international community, having since produced a number of influential outcomes in the area of academic research. Seven years ago, SAGE was founded as an international academic organization; and five years ago, SAGE went on to inaugurate an English-language international academic journal called the Journal of Government and Economics (JGE). In 2025, a Chinese-language journal was officially launched, titled Research in Government and Economics, which has already successfully published two issues, including incorporating research from three Nobel laureates, the publication having since witnessed a rapid rise in its citation rate within a very short period. Wang further expressed his hopes that the research institute will seize this historic opportunity, take serving the country as its mission, persist in conducting internationally influential research, foster a leading international academic hub, and enhance the reach of China's global discourse, all while becoming a pioneer in reforming the discipline of economics in China and making concerted efforts to promote Tsinghua University as one of the forerunners in building an autonomous knowledge system in the fields of philosophy and social sciences.
At the meeting, David Daokui Li introduced the core ideas, latest developments and future directions for the field of government and economics. He mentioned that the fundamental task for government and economics is to incorporate the government—a significant participant in the modern market economy—systematically into economic analysis, study government behavior and its underlying incentive mechanisms, and thereby fully put into place a proactive government and an effective market. He further stressed that a disciplinary branch of academic learning would possess more dynamism than merely schools of thought. Government and economics shows significant promise as a discipline because it contributes to establishing the theoretical basis for Chinese-style modernization and developing the country's own independent knowledge system, transforming the experience gained from China's economic practices into theoretical contributions that are of relevance to audiences around the world, thereby further promoting the discipline internationally. In terms of research methodology, Li explained that government and economics ought to adhere to the trio of case studies, theory and statistics as its basic research paradigm.
On the topic of the artificial intelligence (AI) epoch, Li expressed that AI not only enhances our capabilities to engage in economic research but also raises major issues that the field of governments and economics must address. AI is now in the process of gradually bringing a "silicon-based society" into being. Humanity must not only study how AI is affecting the operation of the economy but also the relationship between a silicon-based society and human society, as well as the behavioral procedures, institutional arrangements and governance mechanisms within a silicon-based society. On this basis, he also proposed establishing an AI Development and Governance Commission with functional capacities in both developing and governing AI, as its name suggests, and incorporating scholars, entrepreneurs and officials from governmental departments. Such a commission would require well-defined goals, professional capabilities and supervisory authority, with its aim being to promote an effective balance between the development and governance of AI.
Eric S. Maskin launched into a discussion on the various societal impacts and governance frameworks associated with the ongoing AI revolution. Compared with the previous industrial, computer, and internet revolutions, AI is being adopted faster and is having a comparatively broader impact, with the technology expected extend its reach into almost every domain of society and across almost all areas of employment. On the one hand, AI has the potential to replace a large amount of routine and repetitive tasks, including even a portion of knowledge work or mental labor; and on the other hand, the technology also generates enormous hazards ranging from the mass substitution of employment and misinformation from deepfakes, as well as the possibility of losing control over AI systems following an increase in their autonomy.
In terms of logic behind the governance of AI, Maskin emphasized that research into AI operating mechanisms and their social impact has the attribute of being a public good, and since the private sector may underinvest in these areas due to the need to maintain profitability, the government therefore must step in to provide the necessary research funding and institutional incentives. He further advocated for applying mechanism design principles in the establishment of institutions focusing on AI governance, ensuring that such institutions can promote the development of AI while effectively preventing its misuse through the reasonable allocation of powers, responsibilities, professional capabilities, incentives and constraints. Compared to the high degree of independence and clearcut targets that underpin the governance model of the Federal Reserve System of the United States, Maskin stated his preference for establishing a dedicated AI department more in line with the mold of the US Department of the Treasury.
Zheng Jianghuai noted that China's stage of economic development has already undergone fundamental changes, shifting from application-oriented development to basic research-oriented development. However, he further explained that the current investment structure remains severely imbalanced, with the overall proportion of national funding devoted to research and development remaining very low. At the regional level, there is a mismatch between inputs and outputs in the area of technological innovation: with the proportion of R&D funding in the country's eastern region declining despite the proportion of patent authorizations for new inventions having continued to rise, while the proportion of R&D funding in the country's western region having meanwhile undergone an increase despite the number of patent authorizations having actually decreased. As the upstream segment in the innovation chain, universities have witnessed a disconnect between engaging in basic research and bringing tangible deliverables to the market, leading to recurrent low-level competition downstream and very low conversion rates for research efforts. At the same time, given that such funding can generate added GDP growth and improve promotion prospects for career bureaucrats, local governments have demonstrated a willingness to invest more into R&D.
Basic research involves two types of externalities. The first is "asymmetric horizontal spatial externalities," wherein the strength of knowledge spillovers from basic research and regional innovation gaps form a U-shaped relationship. The actual innovation capacity of central and western regions in China is relatively weak; even if R&D investment increases, innovation outputs are typically siphoned up by the eastern region. The second involves "vertical externalities," wherein basic research is unable to reap a sufficient share of the profits given its position upstream in the value chain. The combination of these horizontal and vertical externalities has led to an insufficient supply of critical and core technologies, ultimately creating a chokehold on their continued development. Counteracting this chokehold lies in implementing a new countrywide system, one that is endogenous in its nature and capable of overcoming current market and organizational failures. First of all, vertical integration must be adopted to internalize any of the externalities found along the entire value chain. By boosting R&D investment among existing entities engaged in basic research, including fully expanding the scope of basic research and incorporating institutional innovations into the system, such that the scale of investment into basic research is adequate and its coverage is sufficiently broad, the aforementioned externalities can be mitigated. Second, horizontal coordination can be implemented to internalize spatial externalities across regions and market participants, which can be realized through the harmonization of various incentives. Building a unified national market will primarily involve sharing the burdens and benefits of its maturation across regions, which hence poses new challenges to the institutional relationship between central and local governments and differentiated subsidy policies.
Yuval Noah Harari delivered a speech centered around "human choices in the age of AI." He pointed out that AI is no longer simply serving as an auxiliary tool but instead is increasingly involved in and influencing decision-making processes in more and more critical areas. From electricity grid operations to transportation systems, from financial transactions to healthcare services, AI's autonomous decision-making capacity is already playing a crucial role and even beginning to replace humanity's command over its own decision-making processes. Harari emphasized that one of the pivotal issues with transferring such decision-making powers arises from the "opacity" of algorithms: whereby humans indiscriminately hand over important decision-making competencies related to resource allocation, opportunity acquisition and risk assessment to AI systems, effectively abandoning our understanding and control over the decision-making process itself. This in turn may not only undermine social fairness but also potentially poses significant risks.
In taking the historian's perspective, Harari is of the view that technological changes have undoubtedly brought about greater human welfare, with any of the negative factors emerging from these changes often not resulting from the changes themselves, but instead from the processes by which humans adapt to and incorporate such transformations. When society embraces new technologies and advances too quickly without effective mechanisms to oversee and rectify potential areas of concern, this can easily result in catastrophic consequences at critical moments in history. Therefore, the development of AI must not follow a "launch first, then govern afterwards" approach. Institutional arrangements must be established to control AI systems, ensuring that their operating and decision-making processes can be verified, in addition to promptly correcting any issues when they arise, such that the human capacity to intervene remains preserved in those areas of the most critical concern.
In keeping with the core perspectives of government and economics, Dong Zhiyong delivered a systematic address on the topic of "Can Poverty Alleviation Foster People's Aspirations? Government Policy and Personal Choice as Seen from the Issue of ‘Idleness'." Government and economics focuses on the synergies and complementarities between government intervention and market mechanisms in resource allocation, with the "idleness" issue in poverty alleviation work being a typical topic of concern from the standpoint of how policy design and market incentives can influence individual behavioral choices. At its essence, this topic pertains to the boundaries of government intervention in poverty alleviation efforts and the effectiveness of incentives derived from market mechanisms, including how both can jointly resolve the problem of low individual performance.
In his address, Dong alluded to the fact that the "idleness" issue has persisted since the early days of China's reform and opening up, with this issue able to be demarcated and defined based on three dimensions: morality, economics and behavioral science. At its center, there is clearly a combination of attributes characterized by low individual participation, low individual expectations and low individual effort, which results from a mix of overlapping structural factors and individual circumstances rather than being merely an issue with individual character. Dong made use of budget constraint and indifference curve models to analyze the key factors affecting both: the former is linked to constraining variables such as returns, risks and opportunities, while the latter is linked to immediate consumption preferences, loss aversion and sociocultural mechanisms. In terms of policy responses, he proposed both short-term and long-term approaches: with shorter-term policies such as subsidies for employment and industries that can readjust the budget constraint to increase returns to labor and reduce participation costs; and longer-term policies that focus on "poverty alleviation and confidence building," such as promoting the outward shift of the indifference curve from the three aspects of stabilizing expectations, reducing costs for training participation, and establishing responsibility punishment and reward mechanisms, in this way stimulating endogenous dynamism. Lastly, by focusing on the long-term nature of the "idleness" issue, estimating the long-term costs and benefits of incentive policies, defining the boundary between government and the market, as well as investigating discrepancies in expectations between employers and employees regarding compensation and performance, among other questions, Dong marked out a path for further advancing research on this topic from the perspectives of government and economics.
Following the conclusion of the keynote addresses, the conference proceedings then shifted into a roundtable discussion segment with a panel of invited guests.
Qiu Bin relayed his views that as researchers, while assimilating the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the 15th Five-Year Plan, it is of equal importance to place continued attention on social issues of major concern: such as the expansion of the Nanjing metro system and the municipality's metropolitan area, respective investments into the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta regions, the cultural tourism economy, retirement finance, technological finance, and green finance, among many other hot topics. He is of the view that whoever establishes a hold over the industries of the future, amasses highly skilled professional talents and puts the post-2000s generation into best use will achieve a dominant position worldwide. At the same time, while it is necessary to directly address the current downward pressure being placed on China's economic performance, it is also necessary to confront certain ill-intentioned Western viewpoints that paint a stark picture of China's economic and demographic situations.
From a research methodology perspective, although returning to the classics remains important, Qiu suggested that the conventional theories of Adam Smith's absolute advantage and David Ricardo comparative advantage are no longer suitable for China's current experience of development. For instance, Huang Xianhai, Dean of the Institute of Global Development (IGD) at Zhejiang University, has proposed setting up a conceptualization of comparative advantage according to China's own autonomous knowledge system, including establishing this conceptualization by gathering together a specific number of constitutive explanatory elements from the initial outset, which would serve to better illustrate the current robustness of related industries in their capacity to attract and promote investment.
Li Tao remarked that research in the emerging field of government and economics is of great significance for contemporary public governance and the development of the market economy. The government is a key participant in the modern market economy and its actions directly affect, if not even having a determining impact on, the quality of economic operations. Investigating how institutional design can make the government's incentive mechanisms more finely tuned so as to better support the development of a thriving market economy is a core topic that contemporary economic research cannot overlook.
On this basis, Li proposed three frames of reference to describe China's independent knowledge system in economics: the first is its academic originality, which means remaining rooted in Chinese practice when forming new knowledge, theories and methods; the second is gaining international recognition in order to avoid closed-door development; and third is that the maturation of academic disciplines serves as a focal point, which covers multiple dimensions that range from scientific research, knowledge creation, talent cultivation, international cooperation and cultural transmission, with particular emphasis on cultivating younger generations of professional researchers. Li acknowledged that government and economics has already achieved outstanding results in all three aspects as mentioned above, having since made positive contributions to China's independent knowledge system in economics.
Yang Yuzhen discussed her insights on government and economics from the perspectives of macroeconomic governance and previous experiences in regional development. She pointed out that economic governance is the key issue for Chinese-style modernization, with the relationship between government and the market being the main question of concern when it comes to this subject. Yang explained that for a large economic system like China's, the relationship between government and the market in different regions is not simply reflected as "a strong government and a weak market, but rather involves varying combinations, such as a stronger government and a stronger market or a weaker government and a weaker market, with research on the nature of relations between local governments and the market therefore being of considerable value.
Yang further reiterated that Henan Normal University was a proponent early on after establishing its Research Center for Government and the Market Economy, having relied on this platform in its aim to cultivate students capable of comprehending government and the market economy, in addition to possessing a certain cultural and moral consciousness. She invited scholars to visit Henan Province and Henan Normal University for academic research and exchanges, exploring research topics in the field of government and economics from the vantage point of actual on-the-ground local economic circumstances.
Zhang Zhiming observed that government and economics is an exceptionally promising field of study to engage in research on ethnic minority areas in China's borderland regions. Compared to the country's eastern regions, where market economies are relatively well-developed and government intervention is more effective, many government officials in borderland regions have a limited understanding of the academic discipline of economics. When intervening in the market, these officials sometimes are unable to satisfy the requirements for achieving an efficacious government, which can negatively affect the functioning of the market and generate a pervasive phenomenon wherein the government is strong, but the market remains weak. Therefore, government and economics provides substantial value and holds great potential for its diffusion across China's borderland regions, with the onward promotion of this branch of learning among relevant government and university departments being highly anticipated.
Zhang also mentioned that ethnic minority areas in China's borderland regions are of ample significance to the country, such that if these borderland regions can prosper, China will prosper, and if these borderland regions can remain stable, China will remain stable. Only by achieving modernization in China's borderland regions can the country achieve an overall level of modernization as a whole. However, the patterns of economic activity in China's frontier regions differ from those of its interior regions, such that the presupposed assumptions adopted when performing economic analysis should also differ from those adopted when examining the eastern region. He sincerely expressed his invitation for economists to visit the borderland regions and conduct field inspections, expanding their understanding of these frontier regions' economic operations while guiding these areas' economic and social development. These efforts would ensure that the field of government and economics can be better applied to these regions, making a larger number of and more impactful contributions to their drive towards modernization.
Fan Shide commented that research on government and economics closely aligns with the ultimate goal of the discipline of economics serving China's major national strategies. At present, the movement of labor from rural areas to urban areas, moving from areas of underdevelopment to more developed areas, has been enormous, with this overall trend having become increasingly evident. Since the country's targeted poverty alleviation has focused on rural and underdeveloped areas, large-scale population movements at this current stage may lead to gaps in policies targeting poverty alleviation and regional divides. This is an issue area that government and economics must pay close attention to when taking government incentive mechanisms into consideration. At the same time, when promoting rural revitalization and accelerating urban-rural integration, it is also necessary to fully bring to bear the potential impacts of a lopsided population structure that has arisen as a result of labor outflows in rural areas.
Fan also expressed support for David Daokui Li's approach of fostering government and economics into a distinctive branch of learning, underscoring that this approach is beneficial for cultivating professional researchers and advancing in-depth research within this field. In addition, he suggested that if government and economics is to be considered a unique subdiscipline within economics, it is necessary to clearly define its inherent features, conceptions, subject matter, delimitations and connections with other disciplinary fields.
Finally, Liu Peilin focused on explaining the distinctive qualities attributed to the field of government and economics from the perspective of its research questions. First, he pointed out that many young scholars are accustomed to studying how a certain policy (X) as pursued by the government affects a certain outcome (Y). In fact, these researchers can "go a step further" or "leap towards a higher dimension" by further questioning why the government would introduce such relevant policies in the first instance or whether better policies could be designed instead. This in turn would permit a deeper study of policy formation, government incentives and institutional design.
Moreover, Liu emphasized that government and economics must not only work towards deciphering "government" itself but also the mechanisms of interaction between government and the market in terms of their "relations." After the government issues new policies, whether and how market entities, local governments or other actors respond ultimately determines whether or not these policies can in fact be effective. He compared China's infrastructure construction with Indonesia's incorporation of Chinese policies, illustrating that the same policy design can elicit completely different responses in different countries and regions. Therefore, the interactions between government and the market cannot be simply abstracted away and must instead involve deeper reflection and analysis in relation to specific contexts.
After the morning session, the event's organizers presented posters showcasing research achievements by faculty members and students in a separate academic session featuring representatives from Zhejiang Gongshang University, Harbin Engineering University, Zhengzhou University, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Zhejiang University of Science and Technology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Shandong University, Minzu University of China, Tsinghua University, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Nankai University, Jilin University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Wuhan University, Ho Chi Minh Open University, Beijing Forestry University, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Renmin University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China University of Mining and Technology, Nanjing Normal University, Xiamen University, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, Chongqing University, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, and Liaocheng University.
Subsequently, the conference entered into three consecutive plenary sessions, two on "Government and Development" and one on "Enterprises and Industries: The Government and Economics Perspective." Authors were invited to share their research on academic topics and social issues related to government and economics in person at the conference, with the presenters coming from Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, Liaoning University, Xiamen University, Athenyo University (Philippines), Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Southeast University, Tirana Agricultural University (Albania), Beijing Normal University, Shenzhen University, Howard University (United States), Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Central University of Finance and Economics, Henan Normal University, Nanjing University, and Capital University of Economics and Business. They also engaged in further in-depth discussions and exchanges with guests in attendance at the event, including other attending faculty members and students.