Russel Napier

Russell Napier, market historian and author of Anatomy of the Bear (2016), commented on Architect of Prosperity and raised a critical point about the relationship between equality and prosperity:

“Anyone seeking to understand the true nature of inequality must read Neil Monnery’s excellent book. In Hong Kong Sir John Cowperthwaite created a society of great wealth inequality but of great freedom and opportunity. Refugees fled to Hong Kong from the imposed equality of the People’s Republic of China in pursuit of the greater equality of opportunity in the British colony. This book raises fundamental questions about the nature of the equality we seek to pursue.”

Yeung Wai-hong

Yeung Wai-hong, Honorary Publisher of Next Magazine, Hong Kong, who knew Sir John Cowperthwaite well, commented today on Architect of Prosperity:

“To this day, people have little idea of Sir John’s achievements, which deserve a wider  audience. This book fills a glaring void. I hope it will have the wide readership that it most certainly deserves.”

He will be writing several articles about Sir John and the book in the coming weeks.

Lord Patten

Lord Patten of Barnes, last governor of Hong Kong and author of East and West (1999) and First Confession: A Sort of Memoir (2017) has commented on Architect of Prosperity:

“Not before time we now have a fascinating book on one of those who helped create Hong Kong’s thriving economy. Cowperthwaite was a believer in free market economics well before this idea became popular again. Hong Kong should be grateful to him.”

Prof Diane Coyle

Diane Coyle, professor of economics at the University of Manchester and author of The Economics of Enough (2011) and GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History (2014) has commented on Architect of Prosperity

“There are figures in history who deserve to be far better known and Sir John Cowperthwaite is one of those. Neil Monnery’s account of the way he shaped Hong Kong into a dynamic and successful economy now far more prosperous than its colonial ruler, Britain, is all the more fascinating in the light of the current debate about what drives economic development. Policy makers today can learn a lot from the focus and the willingness to ignore the conventional wisdom of the time demonstrated by Cowperthwaite and his colleagues.”

VOX article

VOX, the CEPR policy portal, carries an article today about Hong Kong entitled “Hong Kong: A two-stage economic experiment.”

In it Neil Monnery highlights how post-war Hong Kong has delivered one of the most dramatic improvements in living standards in history. He assesses the contribution of one key official – finance minister Sir John Cowperthwaite – whose laissez-faire approach of ‘positive non-interventionism’, much admired by Milton Friedman, underpinned that success.

It also explores, 20 years on from the handover to China, whether a second stage of the Hong Kong economic experiment might be in progress, perhaps leading to faltering freedom and faltering growth.

https://voxeu.org/article/hong-kong-two-stage-economic-experiment

LSE Business Review

The London School of Economics Business Review carried an article today by Neil Monnery about Sir John Cowperthwaite’s aversion to collecting GDP data for Hong Kong.

Titled “Hong Kong’s postwar transformation shows how fewer data can sometimes boost growth” the article describes how Cowperthwaite frustrated any attempts to collect such data, arguing that such information would lead to ill-advised intervention in the economy. He argued that “the availability of such figures might lead, by a reversal of cause and effect, to policies designed to have a direct effect on the economy. I would myself deplore this.”

Asked in retirement what the key thing that poor countries could do to improve their growth. He replied: “they should abolish the office of national statistics.”

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2017/06/30/hong-kongs-postwar-transformation-shows-how-fewer-data-can-sometimes-boost-growth/

Architect of Prosperity

Today sees the UK launch of a new book about Sir John Cowperthwaite. In “Architect of Prosperity: Sir John Cowperthwaite and the making of Hong Kong” Neil Monnery argues that Sir John was the key figure in setting the economic policies that Hong Kong adopted after World War 2. He claims that these policies enabled Hong Kong’s remarkable economic growth between 1945 and today.

The book is published by London Publishing Partnership

http://londonpublishingpartnership.co.uk/architect-of-prosperity/