This theoretical and empirical study of market-oriented reforms in Chinese industry since the late 1970s focuses on the expansion of the market mechanism in the allocation of industrial products and the concurrent decline of directive planning - a strategy that is a crucial component of the ambitious overall reform "package" that Chinese reformers are trying to implement. The expanding role of Chinese industrial goods has had major implications for the functioning and importance of planning which, the author argues, has become largely irrelevant in terms of direct control over short-term allocation.
A noted Chinese economist examines the mechanisms behind China's economic reforms, arguing that universal principles and specific implementations are equally important. As China has transformed itself from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, economists have tried to understand and interpret the success of Chinese reform. As the Chinese economist Yingyi Qian explains, there are two schools of thought on Chinese reform: the “School of Universal Principles,” which ascribes China's successful reform to the workings of the free market, and the “School of Chinese Characteristics,” which holds that China's reform is successful precisely because it did not follow the economics of the market but instead relied on the government. In this book, Qian offers a third perspective, taking certain elements from each school of thought but emphasizing not why reform worked but how it did. Economics is a science, but economic reform is applied science and engineering. To a practitioner, it is more useful to find a feasible reform path than the theoretically best way. The key to understanding how reform has worked in China, Qian argues, is to consider the way reform designs respond to initial historical conditions and contemporary constraints. Qian examines the role of “transitional institutions”—not “best practice institutions” but “incentive-compatible institutions”—in Chinese reform; the dual-track approach to market liberalization; the ownership of firms, viewed both theoretically and empirically; government decentralization, offering and testing hypotheses about its link to local economic development; and the specific historical conditions of China's regional-based central planning.
China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country’s rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China’s path. In the first post-Mao decade, China’s reformers were sharply divided. They agreed that China had to reform its economic system and move toward more marketization—but struggled over how to go about it. Should China destroy the core of the socialist system through shock therapy, or should it use the institutions of the planned economy as market creators? With hindsight, the historical record proves the high stakes behind the question: China embarked on an economic expansion commonly described as unprecedented in scope and pace, whereas Russia’s economy collapsed under shock therapy. Based on extensive research, including interviews with key Chinese and international participants and World Bank officials as well as insights gleaned from unpublished documents, the book charts the debate that ultimately enabled China to follow a path to gradual reindustrialization. Beyond shedding light on the crossroads of the 1980s, it reveals the intellectual foundations of state-market relations in reform-era China through a longue durée lens. Overall, the book delivers an original perspective on China’s economic model and its continuing contestations from within and from without.
The Logic of the Market by Weiying Zhang—considered China’s “leading market liberal”—comprises his most influential essays on economics over the past three decades. First published in China in 2010, this revised edition contains three new essays, which offer those outside China a deeper understanding of the Chinese economy. “Market competition is a really just competition to create value for others... Only through this approach did the Western economy advance over the past 200 years. It is also the reason for China’s economic marvel over the past 30 years,” writes Weiying. Readers will appreciate Weiying’s ability to address both everyday economic issues and the questions that confront a nation’s leaders, not the least a nation seeking to escape mass poverty. The economic reforms and subsequent growth in China may be the most astonishing and hopeful event of our age. Weiying was among the leaders who set China on its path of change. Here he elucidates the pitfalls and the progress of economic reform, celebrating leaders who mixed sustained idealism with judicious compromise. Readers seeking to learn from China’s successes will find much of interest here. Weiying emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurs in the new China. He concludes, “The key for China, as the country with the world’s largest population, to return to being the largest economy lies in allowing the entrepreneurial spirit to develop the potential of the domestic market.” For that to happen, Weiying recommends that China continue to reduce the state-owned economy, lessen government control over the economy, and—over the next 30 years—emphasize political reform to build a constitutional democracy. His thinking is not limited to China. Some of these essays also focus on the global financial crisis—how Keynesian policies can only be effective for the short term and will bring long-term negative consequences. Weiying provides a unique perspective on his country’s market economy, implementation of economic policies, and the potential for Chinese economic development. “I hope that the logic of the market becomes every person’s ideal,” he writes. “That is my reason for writing this book.”
China has quickly moved into a critical point in the sense that its past performance in economic growth and development has created so many unsolved problems, and for such problems to be addressed, a better understanding of these problems and a clear policy framework are required for policy makers to conduct reforms. Based on highOColevel empirical research on China''s economic development by each of the contributors, this edited book provides an in-depth and clear analysis of many of important issues facing China''s move to new phase of economic development and transformation, and discusses policy issues involved in further reforms.
Chinese Economic Reform: How Far, How Fast? focuses on China's economic reform and tackles topics ranging from the reformed price system and the macroeconomic mechanism to the dual pricing system in industry. The rapid growth in money income and government deficit is also examined, along with the relationship between price level, money supply, and GNP. Agricultural reform and the shortcomings of China's banking system as a tool for monetary control are considered as well. Comprised of 17 chapters, this book begins with an analysis of the impact of the two-tier plan/market system on the Chinese industry, followed by a discussion on the dual pricing system in the industry and money and price level determination in China. The reader is then introduced to China's macroeconomic policy and how it has been influenced by the reform process; money and the consumption goods market; and issues in the structural reform of agriculture. Subsequent chapters focus on the banking system; economic policy and income distribution; trade, employment, and inequality in post-reform China; and the stock-share system as an avenue for reforming the Chinese economy. Economic liberalization in China is also compared with that in India. This monograph will be of interest to economists and economic policymakers.
A planned economy system was set up in China after the establishment of the PRC in 1949, and its reform was launched in 1978. The reform has gone on for 20 years and has achieved globally recognized success. China's economy is now in the course of transforming from a planned economy into a socialist market economy. This book summarizes the successful experiences and points out the difficulties of the deep reform and the prospects for the 21st century. Rich in historical data and material, it provides valuable information for readers from universities, institutions and enterprises as well as government officials — whoever is interested in China and its economic reform.The author, a famous Chinese economist, has been involved in the leadership of the Chinese economic system's reform since its launch in 1979. In 1998 he was invited by the World Bank to give a series of seminars on China's economic reform, and most of the contents of those seminars are included in this book.
