Power and Wealth in Rural China: The Political Economy of Institutional Change (Cambridge Modern China Series)

This book focuses on China's rural industries, offering an innovative, theoretical framework to explain insitutional change. Susan Whiting explores the complex interactions of individuals, institutions, and the broader political economy to examine variation and change in property rights and extractive institutions in China's rural industrial sector. Whiting explains why public ownership predominated during the early years of reform and why privatization is now taking place. This book will be of interest not only to students and scholars of Chinese economic development, but also of comparative politics and political economy more generally. China's rural industrial sector has been the engine driving much of the Chinese economy's dynamism during the reform period. The nature and development of this sector, also referred to as township and village enterprises (TVEs) defy easy explanation. Across regions, there is dramatic variation in property rights among TVEs, ranging from local government ownership to outright private ownership. This book focuses on China's rural industries, offering a theoretical framework to explain institutional change. Susan Whiting explores the complex interactions of individuals, institutions and the broader political economy to examine variation and change in property rights and extractive institutions in China's rural industrial sector. Whiting explains why public ownership predominated during the early years of reform and why privatization is now taking place. This book will be of interest not only to those studying Chinese economic development and reform but also to scholars and students of comparative politics and political economy "This book examines changes in the institutions governing rural industry. Susan Whiting explains not only the striking regional variation in the form of property rights in rural industry during the first decade and a half of China's post-Mao reform, but also the dramatic move toward privatization that has occurred throughout China since the mid-1990s. She further relates the evolution of property rights to changes in state extractive institutions."--Jacket Susan Whiting develops through the case of China's rural industrial sector a theoretical framework to explain institutional change. She explores the complex interactions of individuals, institutions and the broader political economy to explain variation and change in property rights and extractive institutions in rural China.