June 18th-19th, 2016 China Institutional Economics Annual Meeting was held in Shandong University. Over 160 papers were received by the meeting, and 110 papers were presented at the meeting.

The keynote presentations at the meeting were made by the following scholars: Professor WANG Zhongmin, Deputy President of National Council for Social Security Fund; Professor TIAN Guoqiang, President of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics; Professor YAO Yang, President of China Center for Economic Research Peking University; Professor LUO Biliang, former president of School of Economics and Management at South China Agricultural University; Professor HUANG Shaoan, President of School of Economics at Shandong University; Professor ZHANG Qi from Fudan University; Professor MAO Shoulong from Renmin University of China; and Professor WEI Qian from Shandong University.

Eight groups were designated to discuss and assess the 110 papers, and the following 8 were selected as papers of the meeting:

CHU Hongli, SUN Shengming, WEI Jian: Level of Office, Legal Design, and Penalty for Corruption: A Positive Study Based on a Preliminary Sentence of a 2014 Embezzlement Case in China.

WANG Kai, CHEN Wenting, HE Jun: Analysis of Property Rights of Phone Numbers―And the Security Development of Mobile Internet.

SUN Shengmin, CHEN Qiang: Rethinking the Household Responsibility System and China’s Agricultural Growth: Evidence from Panel Tool Variant Method.

LI Xinze: Evolution of the Misallocation of Resources and the Industrial Economic Growth―A Study on China’s Industrial Sectors from 1980 to 2014.

WANG Zhenyu, FU Xin: The Diversity of Communities and Local Economic Growth― Evidence from the City Level in China.

XU Jianming: A Study on Ownership as the Whole of Social Relations―The Property Nature of the Assets of Supply and Marketing Cooperatives in the Marxist Perspective.

HOU Lin, LV Yuxia, WEI Jian: The Prosperity of the Housing Market and the Hollow Manufacturing: Micro-evidence based on Listed Companies.

LIANG Chao: Marriage Market Competition: Dowry, Betrothal Gifts and the Gender Imbalance― Evidence from CHARLS.

Professor ZHANG Shuguang summarised the meeting. He thought, firstly, the meeting reflected the achievements and shortcomings of China’s institutional economic studies over the last 3 decades. On the one hand, there are many schools of economics the are well represented in the 110 papers. On the other hand, the biggest change of China’s economic studies is the advance of quantitative instruments and methods that totally shifted the traditional logic-based research methods. However, this may have led to the other extreme, that is sufficient analysis with little idea. Secondly, he pointed out the importance of having ideas and sharp observations in research. He stressed the urgency of cultivating China’s own economic studies.

The next annual meeting is to be held in South China Agricultural University.