Reforms will benefit the country: Nobelist

Christopher A Pissarides, the 2010 Nobel Prize winner in economics, said that the reforms that China is committed to have sent "a positive signal" and will benefit the world's second-largest economy.

The reform program "is a positive signal. But perhaps China should take one step at a time, because of the large size of the country," Pissarides told a forum during the 15th China Hi-Tech Fair in Shenzhen over the weekend.

Pissarides won the Nobel Prize jointly with Peter A. Diamond and Dale Mortensen, for contributions to the theory of search friction and macroeconomics. He's a professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, specializing in the macroeconomics of labor markets, structural change and economic growth.

According to the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, held from Nov 9-12 in Beijing, China will loosen its longstanding one-child policy. The change will allow couples to have two children if one of them is an only child.

The session also provided a reform agenda for China.

Pissarides said that the change in the one-child policy will benefit China's labor market.

"I think it is long overdue," said Pissarides.

"It will be an improvement from the social side. Economically, a strong and well-educated population will support the economy's development."

According to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China's demographic dividend will reach a turning point in 2015.

That means labor shortages and an increasing population of elderly people.

Figures from the World Bank and the Development Research Center of the State Council show that the annual labor force growth will be 0.3 percent from 2011 to 2015, with a 0.2 percent annual decline from 2016 to 2025.