The Industrialization of Rural China

Erscheinungsjahr 2006
ISBN: 978-0-19-927593-9
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 448 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 819 g

The growth of rural industry in China since 1978 has been explosive. Much of the existing literature explains its growth in terms of changes in economic policy. By means of a combination of privatization, liberalization and fiscal decentralization, it is argued, rural industrialization has taken off. This book takes issue with such claims.

Using a newly constructed dataset covering all of China's 2000 plus counties and complemented by a detailed econometric study of county-level industrialization in the provinces of Sichuan, Guangdong and Jiangsu, the author demonstrates that history mattered. More precisely, it is argued that the development of rural industry in the Maoist period set in motion a process of learning-by-doing whereby China's rural workforce gradually acquired an array of skills and competencies. As a result, rural
industrialization was accelerating well before the 1978 climacteric. The growth of the 1980s and 1990s is therefore likely to be a continuation of this process. Without prior Maoist development of skills, the growth of the post-1978 era would have been much slower, and perhaps would not have
occurred at all - as has been the case in countries such as India and Vietnam. This is not to say that the Maoist legacy was without flaw. Many of the rural industries created under Mao were geared towards meeting defence-related objectives resulting in inefficiencies, and there can be no question that post-1978 policy changes facilitated the growth process. But without the Maoist inheritance, rural industrialization across China would have been unsuccessful.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bramall, Chris

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Agrarsoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Geschichte der VWL
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Internationale Wirtschaft Internationaler Handel
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Fertigungsindustrie Sonstige Fertigungsindustrien
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Wirtschaftssysteme, Wirtschaftsstrukturen

Über Autor(innen)

Chris Bramall was trained in Economics at the University of Cambridge, where he completed a PhD on the Chinese economy in 1989. He was a Fellow and Director of Studies in Economics at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, between 1990 and 2000, before moving to the School of East Asian Studies at Sheffield University, where he is currently a Senior Lecturer. He has researched extensively on the twentieth century Chinese.