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The orientation of this course is towards China’s economic development in the period of the People’s Republic through the prism of historical and geopolitical contexts. Meanwhile brief consideration will be given to the pre-PRC context of the changes that have taken place during the early modern times. Where appropriate, special emphasis will be placed on the nature, rationale and impact of the economic reforms implemented in China since 1978.
This book shows the impact of migration on many aspects of rural life- inequality, the organization of agricultural production, land transfers, livelihood diversification, spending patterns, housebuilding, marriage, education, the position of women, social stability, and state-society relations. The book draws on material from household surveys conducted in two villages in Gaocheng township, Wanzai county, material gathered in Xinfeng and Yudu counties to examine the involvement of returned migrants in business, and material from all three countries to examine the plight of migrants who are forced to return home because of ill fortune in the cities or biding obligations at home.
The key question the book intends to bring new insight to is: Why did sustained industrial growth begin in Northwest Europe, despite surprising similarities between advanced areas of Europe and East Asia? Pomeranz argues that Europe’s nineteenth-century divergence from the Old World owes much to the fortunate location of coal, which substituted for timber, and trade with the Americas. Meanwhile, the growth in population and in manufacturing in the East Asian hinterlands prevented these peripheral regions from exporting vital resources to the cloth-producing Yangzi Delta. Therefore, while Europe grew along resource-intensive, labor-saving paths, East Asia was forced along labor-intensive, resource-saving paths.
This book provides a comprehensive overview of the modern Chinese economy. The first half covers endowments, legacies, economic systems, and general issues of economic structure, labor, and living standards. The second half covers specific sectors, beginning with agriculture and progressing through industry and technology, foreign trade and investment, and macroeconomics. It analyzes patterns of growth and development, including population growth and the one-child family policy; the rural economy, including agriculture and rural industrialization; industrial and technological development in urban areas; international trade and foreign investment; macroeconomic trends and cycles and the financial system; etc. The final chapter covers the environment and sustainability.
This book examines the evolution of inequality in China from 2002 to 2007, a period when the new harmonious society development strategy was adopted under Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. Drawing on original information collected from the most recent two waves of nationwide household surveys conducted by the China Household Income Project, this book provides an overview of recent trends in income inequality and analysis of key factors underlying such trends. Topics covered include inequality in education, changes in homeownership and the distribution of housing wealth, the evolution of the migrant labor market, patterns of work and nonwork, gender and ethnic gaps, and the impacts of public policies, etc.
This book provides an integrated analysis of China’s unexpected economic boom of the past three decades. It collects altogether 20 essays, exposing the mechanisms underpinning the origin and expansion of China’s great boom. They track the rise of Chinese capabilities in manufacturing and in reach and development; probe both achievements and weaknesses across many sectors including China’s fiscal, legal, and financial institutions; show how an intricate minuet combining China’s political system with sectoral development, globalization, resource transfers across geographic and economic space; and present partial system reform delivered an astonishing and unprecedented growth spurt. The book finally concludes that China’s economic expansion is likely to continue during the coming decades.
The central argument of this book is that FDI inflows into China surged in 1990s because of the combination of some substantial problems in China’s corporate sector and China’s promising macro fundamentals. This book identifies sources of problems in China’s corporate sector, and argues that the primary benefits associated with China’s FDI inflows have to do with the privatization functions supplied by foreign firms in a context of political opposition to an explicit privatization program, venture capital provisions to private entrepreneurs in a system that enforces stringent credit constraints on the private sector, and promotion of interregional capital mobility in a fragmented economy.
This book contributes to the study of changes in China’s institutions and their impact on the national economy, as well as ordinary people’s daily material life from 1800 to 2000. The benchmark used by the author is people’s entitlement and mundane day-to-day material well-being. Part One deals with China’s state-building experience from the late Qing to the recent reforms, tackling the issues of state-builders’ motives, behavioral patterns and impacts. Part Two assesses economic performance and people’s entitlement and living standards under the shadow of state-building. The final chapter concludes that state-building was the prime mover in China’s modern history.
This book compiles analyses and insights from high-level Chinese policy makers and prominent international scholars that address the changes needed in public finance for success in the government's new endeavor. It examines such key policy issues as public finance and the changing role of the state; fiscal reform and revenue and expenditure assignments; intergovernmental relations and fiscal transfers; and financing and delivery of basic public goods such as compulsory education, innovation, public health, and social protection. And it offers concrete recommendations for immediate policy changes and for China's future reform agenda.
This book provides a historical economic analysis of two key issues relating to township and village enterprise (TVE) development in China. Firstly, the nature of the evolving relationship between TVEs and local government; in particular how TVE entrepreneurs have used institutionalized power to secure the political influence needed to defend their financial independence. Secondly, the relationship between TVEs and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and the role of SOEs in China’s economic transition. By measuring the structural difference of the SOE sector before and after 1998–2003 SOE reform, Jin explains their fast catch-up in productivity since the mid-1990s, as well as the relative decline of TVE productivity.
This book collects papers focusing on the degree to which China’s post-1949 economy was a product of the nation’s own past. The papers discuss the positive and negative effects of foreign imperialism on Chinese economic development, the adequacy of China's financial resources for major economic initiatives, the state of science and technology in late traditional China, the changing structure of national product and distribution of income, the cotton textile and small machine-building industries as examples of pre-1949 economic bases, the village-market town structure of rural China, the tradition of cooperative efforts in agriculture, and the influence of the Yenan period on the economic thinking of China's leaders.
This book introduces the transformation of China’s economy into a market economy with its special characteristics. It reveals new findings concerning the roles of market institutions, Chinese human capital, private ownership, form of government, political conditions and bureaucratic economic institutions. Historical-institutional and theoretical-quantitative approaches are both employed to study China’s economy in this book, providing a penetrating and comprehensive analysis of the historical, institutional and theoretical factors which have contributed to China’s economic success. Chow suggests that economic tools can be applied to China provided that the researcher carefully examines whether the basic assumptions are consistent with the realities of Chinese society.
Based on a conference held in Hong Kong in 1991, this book offers an overview of the economic achievements of those post-1978 reforms by presenting essays capturing the vagaries of policy and performance in major areas of economic activity. The editors and contributors identify the main trends in the economy, cover the important topics carefully and comprehensively, and provide thought-provoking analysis of the likely future directions for China's growth. The book highlights the major problems that emerged from that experience and speculates on the challenges and opportunities that have confronted China’s planners during the 1990s.
In particular, this volume studies three questions. Why did the Chinese Empire stay together when the Roman Empire, and every other empire of antiquity of the middle ages, ultimately collapsed? What were the causes of the medieval revolution which made the Chinese economy after about 1100 the most advanced in the world? And why did China after about 1350 fail to maintain her earlier pace of technological advance while still, in many respects, advancing economically? The three sections of the book deal with these problems in turn but the division of a subject matter is to some extent only one of convenience.
This book collects 20 essays to present Chinese population policy, assess its effects and project future consequences. It begins with assessments of China's population distribution mortality and fertility patterns, and related population policy. These chapters are followed by others dealing with the consequences of those events, namely age and sex structures, population ageing, marriage and family patterns. Other topics covered include education, employment, gender issues, population distribution and urbanization, internal and international migration, ethnic populations, health care, environment and population projections. The population issue of Hong Kong is discussed in a special chapter.
