A Stimulus Plan for China

The Chinese economy is slowing rapidly. The latest estimates show declines of several percent in official Chinese growth rates, which might be indicative of an actual recession. The Chinese government, like many around the world, is responding with a large economic stimulus plan. Official estimates are that the plan will cost roughly 14 percent of one year of China’s GDP, or well more than double the relative size of the proposed plan in the U.S. While some of the proposed stimulus spending may be worth doing anyway, the idea of a stimulus plan is to spend and build more than is worth doing in an economic slowdown. In the rush to stimulate the economy, there will surely be some waste and investments undertaken that in retrospect may be worthless.

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