[Are China's go-go day's behind it or will it roll with the punches? Below is an interview with Mark DeWeaver, author of the forthcoming book Animal Spirits with Chinese Characteristics -- to be released on December 11. Mark received his PhD in economics from the University of Hawaii in 1998. He is the co-founder of Quantrarian Capital Management a DC-based emerging markets hedge fund.]
Tim: Tell us a little about yourself, your academic background and what drew you to China?
Mark: I originally went to China in 1985 to study Chinese. Later, as it started to seem that China would follow in the footsteps of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, I became interested in the transition from socialism to a market economy. I ended up going back to school to study economics at the University of Hawaii, where I had an East-West Center scholarship.
Tim: Why did you move to Hong Kong and what did you do there?
Mark: I worked for Hong Kong brokerages but lived just over the border in Shenzhen. I spent most of my time writing reports on the mainland projects of Hong Kong-listed companies and sometimes also translated meetings for visiting clients.
Tim: What made you interested in writing a book? Why now?
Mark: The idea for the book occurred to me in the mid-2000s. At that time our fund was entirely invested in Hong Kong and Chinese-listed stocks so I got pretty focused on the volatility of Chinese investment growth. I noticed that little had been written on this subject in English so I thought I could fill an interesting niche for the English speaking reader.
It turns out that this is a pretty good time for the book to be coming out as people are beginning to talk about China’s economy slowing down. But of course I didn’t originally anticipate this.
Tim: Great title, what is the inspiration for it?
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