The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China

The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China PDF Author: Susan L. Shirk
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520912217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411

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Book Description
In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chinese communist political institutions are more flexible and less centralized than their Soviet counterparts were. Shirk pioneers a rational choice institutional approach to analyze policy-making in a non-democratic authoritarian country and to explain the history of Chinese market reforms from 1979 to the present. Drawing on extensive interviews with high-level Chinese officials, she pieces together detailed histories of economic reform policy decisions and shows how the political logic of Chinese communist institutions shaped those decisions. Combining theoretical ambition with the flavor of on-the-ground policy-making in Beijing, this book is a major contribution to the study of reform in China and other communist countries. 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 1994. In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chine

The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China

The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China PDF Author: Susan L. Shirk
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520912217
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 411

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chinese communist political institutions are more flexible and less centralized than their Soviet counterparts were. Shirk pioneers a rational choice institutional approach to analyze policy-making in a non-democratic authoritarian country and to explain the history of Chinese market reforms from 1979 to the present. Drawing on extensive interviews with high-level Chinese officials, she pieces together detailed histories of economic reform policy decisions and shows how the political logic of Chinese communist institutions shaped those decisions. Combining theoretical ambition with the flavor of on-the-ground policy-making in Beijing, this book is a major contribution to the study of reform in China and other communist countries. 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 1994. In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chine

The Heart of Economic Reform

The Heart of Economic Reform PDF Author: Donald Daochi Tong
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351738372
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
This title was first published in 2002.Banking reform lies at the heart of economic reform in China and is central to sustaining the countries high economic growth. This timely book covers an important economic policy issue in China, namely the existing and potential roles of the financial sector in the development of the Chinese economy. It explores for the first time the relationship between the reforms of the financial sector, of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and of the social welfare system. Donald D. Tong presents a wealth of valuable data accompanied by original insights and interpretations. The author also examines the original estimates of the cost of the social welfare burden given that social services such as old age pension, housing, healthcare and education are provided by the SOEs rather than by the private or public sector directly.

The Heart of Economic Reform

The Heart of Economic Reform PDF Author: Donald Daochi Tong
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351738380
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
This title was first published in 2002.Banking reform lies at the heart of economic reform in China and is central to sustaining the countries high economic growth. This timely book covers an important economic policy issue in China, namely the existing and potential roles of the financial sector in the development of the Chinese economy. It explores for the first time the relationship between the reforms of the financial sector, of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and of the social welfare system. Donald D. Tong presents a wealth of valuable data accompanied by original insights and interpretations. The author also examines the original estimates of the cost of the social welfare burden given that social services such as old age pension, housing, healthcare and education are provided by the SOEs rather than by the private or public sector directly.

How Reform Worked in China

How Reform Worked in China PDF Author: Yingyi Qian
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026253424X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
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.

Unknotting the Heart

Unknotting the Heart PDF Author: Jie Yang
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801456177
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Since the mid-1990s, as China has downsized and privatized its state-owned enterprises, severe unemployment has created a new class of urban poor and widespread social and psychological disorders. In Unknotting the Heart, Jie Yang examines this understudied group of workers and their experiences of being laid off, "counseled," and then reoriented to the market economy. Using fieldwork from reemployment programs, community psychosocial work, and psychotherapy training sessions in Beijing between 2002 and 2013, Yang highlights the role of psychology in state-led interventions to alleviate the effects of mass unemployment. She pays particular attention to those programs that train laid-off workers in basic psychology and then reemploy them as informal "counselors" in their capacity as housemaids and taxi drivers. These laid-off workers are filling a niche market created by both economic restructuring and the shortage of professional counselors in China, helping the government to defuse intensified class tension and present itself as a nurturing and kindly power. In reality, Yang argues, this process creates both new political complicity and new conflicts, often along gender lines. Women are forced to use the moral virtues and work ethics valued under the former socialist system, as well as their experiences of overcoming depression and suffering, as resources for their new psychological care work. Yang focuses on how the emotions, potentials, and "hearts" of these women have become sites of regulation, market expansion, and political imagination.

The Heart of Economic Reform: China's Banking Reform and State Enterprise Restructuring

The Heart of Economic Reform: China's Banking Reform and State Enterprise Restructuring PDF Author: Daochi Tong
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Banks and banking
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
Significant market-oriented reforms carried out in China have brought tremendous changes in the real sector. However, the reform of the financial sector has lagged that of the real sector. The weakness of the financial sector and the alarm of the Asian financial crisis have caught the attention of the leadership and in 1997-98, the government identified financial reform as the top priority in the reform agenda. This study examines how financial resources are misallocated under the current financial system in China, and the impact of such misallocation of capital on the strength of the banking sector, and on China's long-term economic growth. It also explores the reasons why financial reform that is needed to improve the efficiency in allocation of capital has been delayed and lagged real sector reform, by measuring and analyzing the costs of social services that the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) provided. In particular, it provides estimates of social welfare costs to SOEs and their effects on the profitability of the state sector, and draws implications on the sequence of social welfare reform, the state enterprise restructuring, and the reform of the banking system.

Democracy and the Market

Democracy and the Market PDF Author: Adam Przeworski
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521423359
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
The quest for freedom from hunger and repression has triggered in recent years a dramatic, worldwide reform of political and economic systems. Never have so many people enjoyed, or at least experimented with democratic institutions. However, many strategies for economic development in Eastern Europe and Latin America have failed with the result that entire economic systems on both continents are being transformed. This major book analyzes recent transitions to democracy and market-oriented economic reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Drawing in a quite distinctive way on models derived from political philosophy, economics, and game theory, Professor Przeworski also considers specific data on individual countries. Among the questions raised by the book are: What should we expect from these experiments in democracy and market economy? What new economic systems will emerge? Will these transitions result in new democracies or old dictatorships?

The China Paradox

The China Paradox PDF Author: Paul G. Clifford
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110724235
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
In The China Paradox: At the Front Line of Economic Transformation, Harvard University-based historian of modern China and business strategist Dr. Paul G. Clifford documents the twists and turns of China’s dramatic and unforeseen rise over the last four decades. He sheds light on the delicate and fragile balance of forces at the heart of the success of China’s hybrid model, explaining how the ruling Communist Party boldly led the nation’s economic reforms as the surest way to preserve its grip on political power. Five years after this book was first published, much has changed within China and in its relationship with the world. This second edition provides extensive fresh new material. It explains how China has raised its game, moving from a catch-up mode to technological innovation in some areas, while still languishing in technology dependence in other respects. Earlier, China had shown signs that its driving spirit was faltering with its sails flapping. Under Xi Jinping, renewed energy has been injected. But at the same time Xi and his party have strongly reinforced their control across society and the economy, posing the question of whether Xi’s New Era in fact marks a retreat from the reforms. This second edition contains two new chapters. One profiles Huawei, a national champion in advanced technology. Another focuses on China’s frictions with the world which have been fueled by a perception that its technology progress threatens US global dominance, coupled with China’s human rights record. In addition, against a background of the challenges faced by Alibaba and other firms, there is analysis of this watershed in China’s private sector’s autonomy. There is also extensive new insight into Xi Jinping’s rule. As it celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2021, the Chinese Communist Party displays strong optimism over its continued governance of China. But that should not mask the longer-term risks to China’s development and stability if its hybrid model continues to unravel as reforms are abandoned in favor of heightened autocracy.

Without a Map

Without a Map PDF Author: Andrei Shleifer
Publisher: Mit Press
ISBN: 9780262692694
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
A balanced look at Russia's attempts to build capitalism on the ruins of Soviet central planning. Recent commentators on Russia's economic reforms have almost uniformly declared them a disappointing and avoidable--failure. In this book, two American scholars take a new and more balanced look at the country's attempts to build capitalism on the ruins of Soviet central planning. They show how and why the Russian reforms achieved remarkable breakthroughs in some areas but came undone in others. Unlike Eastern European countries such as Poland or the Czech Republic, to which it is often compared, Russia is a federal, ethnically diverse, industrial giant with an economy heavily oriented toward raw materials extraction. The political obstacles it faced in designing reforms were incomparably greater. Shleifer and Treisman tell how Russia's leaders, navigating in uncharted economic terrain, managed to find a path around some of these obstacles. In successful episodes, central reformers devised a strategy to win over some key opponents, while dividing and marginalizing others. Such political tactics made possible the rapid privatization of 14,000 state enterprises in 1992-1994 and the defeat of inflation in 1995. But failure to outmaneuver the new oligarchs and regional governors after 1996 undermined reformers' attempts to collect taxes and clean up the bureaucracy that has stifled business growth.Renewing a strain of analysis that runs from Machiavelli to Hirschman, the authors reach conclusions about political strategies that have important implications for other reformers. They draw on their extensive knowledge of the country and recent experience as advisors to Russian policymakers. Written in an accessible style, the book should appeal to economists, political scientists, policymakers, businesspeople, and all those interested in Russian politics or economics.

Communists constructing capitalism

Communists constructing capitalism PDF Author: Julian Gruin
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526135353
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Why has China’s ‘transition’ to a market economy not catalysed corresponding political transformation? In an era of deepening synergy between authoritarian politics and capitalist economics, this book offers a novel perspective on this central dilemma of contemporary Chinese development, shedding light on how the Chinese Communist Party achieved rapid economic growth while preserving political stability. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and over sixty interviews with policymakers, bankers and former party and state officials, the book delves into the role of China’s state-owned banking system since 1989, showing how political control over capital has been central to the country’s experience of capitalist development. It challenges existing state-market paradigms of political economy and reveals the Eurocentric assumptions underpinning liberal perspectives towards Chinese authoritarian resilience.