China's basic work units, collectively known as the danwei system, have undergone significant reform, particularly since 1984. The author examines how this system operates and how reform is generating change in the party at grassroots level. The author demonstrates how China's post-Mao reforms have produced a quiet revolution from below as the process of political and economic liberalization has accelerated. This book presents new research findings that will be invaluable to those wishing to understand the nature of change in China.
The Nature, the Performance, and the Reform of State-owned Enterprises provides a detailed description of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China with respect to both efficiency and income distribution. It shows that state ownership in the form of SOEs does not use resources efficiently and has a poor record in income distribution. Moreover, SOEs are found to enjoy unfair advantages in their competition with other firms. To illustrate the point, the book presents data revealing how favored policies, monopolistic powers, and subsidies benefit SOEs. These advantages are worth several trillion yuans a year. It is a sad irony that such wealth of the people is used to beef up the revenues of the SOEs, making their accounts look much better than they should be.This book, with its rich empirical data and information, is an authoritative reference for researchers interested in SOEs. It is also a good read for students of social sciences and the public to learn more about SOEs.
This book is informative and readable. It will be of interest to anyone wanting to learn about the development of the Chinese economy in general and the reforms of state-owned enterprises in particular. The data and in-depth discussion presented in the book will appeal to academics as well as policymakers. Yin-Fang Zhang, Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy China watchers will welcome a book which provides a detailed insight into the two pillars of that economy: the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the state-owned banks (SOBs). This is a scholarly work, rich in detail. Shelagh Heffernan, The Financial Regulator For China to sustain her transformation requires that she tackle reform of her state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and banks. This book comprehensively assesses the scale of the problem, reviews previous reforms and suggested solutions. Finally the authors propose their own reform agenda, sensitive to Chinese realities. Michael Artis, European University Institute, Italy This is an excellent study of the nexus between the effects of party control, the soft budget of state-owned enterprise (SOEs) and the financial fragility of the state-owned banking system (SOBs) in China. It is both sympathetic and knowledgeable about the problems of achieving reform and progress. Beautifully written, it should become the most influential work in this field in the English-speaking world. Charles A.E. Goodhart, London School of Economics, UK This book s starting point is that after two decades of experiments, during which other transition economies have effectively privatised all of their former state enterprises, China is still endeavouring to find a way to reinvent and re-engineer its own state-owned economic establishments. The authors explore these reforms along with the problems of China s state-owned banks, which have long been troubled by the adverse loans of Chinese enterprises and face foreign competition in 2007 under China s WTO commitments. Drawing on wide-ranging case studies of enterprise reform, Becky Chiu and Mervyn Lewis combine their extensive experience to give an authoritative account of China s enterprise and bank reform agenda, involving property rights, improved corporate governance and stimulating enterprise. This book will be of great interest to business economists, academic economists and those following the development of the Chinese economy.
This work is a continuation of the authors' earlier publication, "The China Miracle: Development Strategy and Economic Reform". The authors review the historical evolution of the state-owned enterprises, analyze the current problems, and suggest the direction for future reforms.
Based on extensive original research, this book provides a comprehensive overview of the current status of state enterprise reform in China. Chinese State Enterprise Reform considers the relationship between public ownership and public enterprises, and the historical evolution of China's economic reform programme since 1978, including assessments of the Contrast Responsiblity System, which operated from the early 1980s to the early 1990s, and the Group Company Experiments, which began in the 1990s. It discusses the relations between workers, managers, and the state in post-Dengist China, the implications of the reform programme for human resources management in state enterprises, the nature of labour representation, and organization under tate capitalism and the problems of surplus labour and reemployment.
China's extraordinarily rapid economic growth since 1978, driven by market-oriented reforms, has set world records and continued unabated, despite predictions of an inevitable slowdown. In The State Strikes Back: The End of Economic Reform in China?, renowned China scholar Nicholas R. Lardy argues that China's future growth prospects could be equally bright but are shadowed by the specter of resurgent state dominance, which has begun to diminish the vital role of the market and private firms in China's economy. Lardy's book arrives in timely fashion as a sequel to his pathbreaking Markets over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China, published by PIIE in 2014. This book mobilizes new data to trace how President Xi Jinping has consistently championed state-owned or controlled enterprises, encouraging local political leaders and financial institutions to prop up ailing, underperforming companies that are a drag on China's potential. As with his previous book, Lardy's perspective departs from conventional wisdom, especially in its contention that China could achieve a high growth rate for the next two decades—if it reverses course and returns to the path of market-oriented reforms.
The transition from a planned to a market economy that began in China in the late 1970s unleashed an extraordinary series of changes, including increases in private enterprise, foreign investment, the standard of living, and corruption. Another result of economic reform has been the creation of a new class—China's new business elite. Margaret M. Pearson considers the impact that this new class is having on China's politics. She concludes that, contrary to the assumptions of Westerners, these groups are not at the forefront of the emergence of a civil society; rather, they are part of a system shaped deliberately by the Chinese state to ensure that economic development will not lead to democratization. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1997. The transition from a planned to a market economy that began in China in the late 1970s unleashed an extraordinary series of changes, including increases in private enterprise, foreign investment, the standard of living, and corruption. Another result of
China's basic work units, collectively known as the danwei system, have undergone significant reform, particularly since 1984. The author examines how this system operates and how reform is generating change in the party at grassroots level. The author demonstrates how China's post-Mao reforms have produced a quiet revolution from below as the process of political and economic liberalization has accelerated. This book presents new research findings that will be invaluable to those wishing to understand the nature of change in China.
The year 2018 marks 40 years of reform and development in China (1978–2018). This commemorative book assembles some of the world’s most prominent scholars on the Chinese economy to reflect on what has been achieved as a result of the economic reform programs, and to draw out the key lessons that have been learned by the model of growth and development in China over the preceding four decades. This book explores what has happened in the transformation of the Chinese economy in the past 40 years for China itself, as well as for the rest of the world, and discusses the implications of what will happen next in the context of China’s new reform agenda. Focusing on the long-term development strategy amid various old and new challenges that face the economy, this book sets the scene for what the world can expect in China’s fifth decade of reform and development. A key feature of this book is its comprehensive coverage of the key issues involved in China’s economic reform and development. Included are discussions of China’s 40 years of reform and development in a global perspective; the political economy of economic transformation; the progress of marketisation and changes in market-compatible institutions; the reform program for state-owned enterprises; the financial sector and fiscal system reform, and its foreign exchange system reform; the progress and challenges in economic rebalancing; and the continuing process of China’s global integration. This book further documents and analyses the development experiences including China’s large scale of migration and urbanisation, the demographic structural changes, the private sector development, income distribution, land reform and regional development, agricultural development, and energy and climate change policies.
The greatest economic challenge facing China in the post-Deng era is the reform of unprofitable, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) which threaten to drag down the rest of the economy. Despite an array of well-intentioned, market-oriented reform measures, these firms have never truly been forced to face the pressure of a bottom line, or the threat of bankruptcy. Forging Reform in China explains how and why these measures have not been sweepingly successful to date, and what it would take to achieve meaningful reform. The author investigates firm-level processes, including case studies of China's steel industry giants, revealing institutional and systemic barriers to market-oriented performance. This book makes a compelling argument that private ownership cannot work in China's current system until governance over complex economic factors has been established, that is, until credit is tightened and market selection processes made to work.
