Professor AnalysisJune 16, 2026
In China, there is a word for the kind of competition where everyone works harder and harder but no one ends up better off: involution. Firms cut prices, copy each other, and pour in more effort, yet profits keep shrinking. It is exhausting, and it is everywhere—so much so that in 2026 the government made cleaning it up an official priority, writing the goal of “rectifying involutionary competition” into its annual work report. The market is sending the same message. When China’s statisticians updated the basket of goods used to track consumer prices in early 2026, they gave less weight to […]
