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

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.