Continuity and Change in China's Rural Development: Collective and Reform Eras in Perspective - Hardcover

Putterman, Louis

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195078721 ISBN 13: 9780195078725

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1993

Synopsis

With the ascendancy of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China began a program of agricultural reform intended to increase productivity. This detailed study examines what the author sees as the major changes which moved the sector from a centrally planned to a more market-oriented system--replacement of collective teams with household farming, an increase of free markets for rural products, an increased state price for agricultural products, and greater freedom to expand off-farm activities--changes in the economic structure which facilitated greater productivity. It is unique in its focus on a single township, providing new data on the effects of reform at the village level.

About this title

About the Author

Louis Putterman is Professor of Economics and Associate Director of the Center for the Comparative Study of Development at Brown University, and a Research Associate at the Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, Harvard University.

From the Back Cover

With the ascendancy of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, China began a program of agricultural reform intended to increase productivity. These rural economic reforms are much celebrated for their dramatic impact on farm output, economic growth, and income. In this detailed study, Louis Putterman examines the major changes in China's agricultural sector: replacement of collective teams with household farming, an increase in free markets for rural products, higher state prices for agricultural products, and greater freedom to expand off-farm activities. Continuity and Change in China's Rural Development brings together a set of theoretical and empirical analyses of the Chinese rural economy in the 1970s and early 1980s based on a local case study, that of Dahe Township in north China's Hebei province. It places these analyses in the context of China's modern rural development record and of the state of knowledge based on other sources. Topics covered include work incentives and labor supply during the collective production period, resource allocation under both the collective and the post-collective institutional regimes, the effects of reform on productivity and resource allocation, land tenure in the post-collective period, and income distribution. In his conclusion, the author argues that anti-incentive and anti-agriculture biases in government policy constitute a strand of continuity connecting the collective and post-collective eras of China's rural development, and that further liberalization of agricultural markets is the most important prescription for a healthier rural economy. This book is unique in its focus on a single township, providing new data on the effects of reform at the villagelevel. It will be of interest to researchers, students, and scholars of the economics of rural and agricultural development.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195078721
• ISBN 13: 9780195078725
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400