This Stalinist-type development strategy was abandoned by Deng Xiaoping, who launched a market-oriented reform programme soon after he consolidated his power position in the Chinese leadership. At the beginning of the reform, raising the livelihood of farmers was accorded the highest priority in the government’s policy. Dramatically high agricultural growth was brought about by the introduction of various reform measures. Farmers benefited a lot from the increase in income. ’

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Peasant Income in China: The Impact of Rural Reforms and Structural Changes

Rebalancing and Sustaining Growth in China

The orthodox transition literature, that has dominated the debate on Eastern Europe, argues that well-defined property rights are a precondition for successful transition in post-socialist countries. As a result, most of this literature has treated the success of China's economic reforms as an enigma. The dilemma for "transition economists" is that the driving force behind China's high rate of economic growth has been the outstanding performance of its township and village enterprises (T.V.Es). Yet, in most cases, it is not clear who owns the T.V.E - the local residents or the township and village government. This thesis puts forward two main arguments. The first is that the success which T.V.Es have had can be explained through drawing on different notions of the division of labour. The second is that T.V.Es are a specific example of a broader literature on regionalism and that their success suggests some wider lessons. These form the basis of an alternative vision for post-socialist transformation based on collective learning. The thesis suggests that there is a legitimate cognitive function for less than arms-length relationships in post-socialist economies as part of a more general pattern of institutionalised diversification.

Institutional perspectives on post-socialist transformation with particular reference to township and village enterprises in China.

This study applies a decomposition technique to analyze China’s regional inequality using county-level data. It is shown that inter-provincial inequality increased significantly during 1997-2007. It is also shown that, although inter-county-level-unit inequality within all the provinces remained more or less the same during the period considered, its contribution to the overall inequality (based on the Theil-T index) amounted to about 60% in 2007. This means that intra-provincial regional inequality is the crux of the problem of regional inequality in China. According to the estimates of the Theil-T index, the increase in intra-provincial regional inequality contributed to 63% of the increase in overall inequality during over the period covered, whereas the provinces of Jiangsu, Hebei and Inner Mongolia together contributed 47%. The county-level data is then divided into city and county subgroups. Further decomposition based on the Theil-T index shows that the inter-county inequality component contributed a much higher proportion than the inter-city inequality component, whereas the component of the inequality between the city and county subgroups contributed the least to the intra-provincial regional inequality. The results from the decomposition also suggest that each province has its own characteristics and evolution pattern of inequality. The decomposition of the intra-provincial regional inequality for each province shows that provinces in the central and western zones should focus on the alleviation of inter-county inequality, while provinces in the north-eastern zone should concentrate on inter-city inequality. The provinces in the eastern zone should focus on both inter-county and inter-city inequalities. The provinces of Fujian, Jiangsu, Henan, Guizhou, and Qinghai should pay attention to the inequality between city and county subgroups.

Peasant Income in China: The Impact of Rural Reforms and Structural Changes

Citations

Rebalancing and Sustaining Growth in China

Institutional perspectives on post-socialist transformation with particular reference to township and village enterprises in China.

Intra-Provincial Inequality in China: An analysis of county-level data

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