Demystifying the Chinese Miracle: The Rise and Future of Relational Capitalism

The last three decades has witnessed miraculous economic growth of China. What has accounted for its miracle? What is the nature and future of the Chinese model? Is it unique?

This book presents an analytical framework to demystify China's economic growth miracle. The book suggests that interlinked and relational contracts between the agents (in particular, between the state and the business) can compensate for flawed markets to achieve high growth. This kind of relational capitalism is significant in the investment-based stage of development, when mobilization of resources to exploit the existing technologies is key for growth.

The book presents a general theory of interlinked relational contract, the workhorse model of the book. The theory highlights that effective governance is a function of market extent and market completeness. The process of economic development and modernization can be looked at fruitfully from two perspectives: the markets and the institutions and their interactions. The book stresses the critical fit between the development stage and the governance for a country's economic transition and development and thus the idea of "appropriate institutions".

Yongqin Wang is Professor of Economics at the China Center for Economic Studies (CCES) and School of Economics, Fudan University, and had held visiting position at Yale University (2008-2010). He received his Phd in Economics from Fudan University in 2004 and had also visited Queen’s University (Kingston, Canada) and IDEI, University of Toulouse 1 (Toulouse, France) as a visiting scholar. His main research interests include development economics, financial economics and Chinese economy.