This is a recording of my October 31, 2025 discussion with Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li about their excellent and important new book The Highest Exam - How the Gaokao Shapes China.

From a synopsis of the book:

In The Highest Exam, authors Ruixue Jia, Hongbin Li, and Claire Cousineau present a sweeping, data-rich account of China’s exam-centered education system — a “centralized, hierarchical tournament” culminating in the Gaokao, a grueling three-day college entrance exam. Drawing on decades of empirical research and lived experience, Jia and Li — both leading economists who took the Gaokao and later taught at top universities in Beijing, Hong Kong, and the U.S. — reveal how this state-managed system shapes education, labor markets, political legitimacy, and social values.

You can buy the book here: The Highest Exam - How the Gaokao Shapes China. It is well-written and priced like a normal book, not an academic one. You can not understand China without understanding the Gaokao system, so this is an important and very useful book.

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