The China Miracle: Development Strategy and Economic Reform

By Justin Yifu Lin, Fang Cai, Zhou Li

The tremendous success of China's economic reform, in contrast with the vast difficulties encountered by the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries in their transition, has attracted worldwide attention. Using a historical, comparative and analytic approach grounded in mainstream economics, the authors develop a consistent and rational framework of state-owned enterprises and individual agents to analyze the internal logic of the traditional Chinese planning system. They also explain why the Chinese economy grew slowly before the market-oriented reform in 1979 but became one of the fastest growing economies afterwards, and why the vigor/chaos cycle became part of China's reform process. The book also addresses the questions: Can China continue its trend of reform and development and become the largest economy in the world in the early twenty-first century? What are the general implications of China's experience of development and reform for other developing and transition economies? In this revised edition, the authors update the data and information in the book and include a new chapter on the impact of China's WTO accession on its reform.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 9622019854
• ISBN13: 9789622019850
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.3"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Highly Recommended Textbook for China's Economic Development

"The China Miracle" provides an extensive study of the China's economic development since the establishment of People's Republic of China in 1949. Since the economic reform began in the late 1970s, China's economy grew rapid, with an average annual GNP growth rate of 10% for the past two decades. The China's experience contrasts greatly with the vast difficulties faced by the transition in the form Soviet Union, and Central and Eastern European countries. The success of China's reform thus has attracted worldwide attention.The authors attempts to answer four questions that are often raised: 1) Why did Chinese economy grow slowly before the reform in 1979 but then grow rapidly afterwards? 2) Why did cyclical fluctuations - the "vigor/chaos" cycles - become part of China's reform process? 3) Can China continue the trend of reform and development and maintain a sustained, rapid growth in the future? 4) What are the general implications of China's experience for other developing and transition economies?The book remains optimistic about the future success of China's economic reform. Yet, it also points out several problems with the economic reforms that are needed to be dealt with, such as the difficulties in the reform of State-owned enterprises (SOEs), the increasing unevenness in regional development and income distribution, etc. For more discussions on the SOE reform, the book "Stated-owned Enterprise Reform in China" written by the same authors provides a comprehensive study on this issue.Overall, this book is a very good textbook and reference to students and scholars who are interested in Chinese economy and its future development.