Product Description

This is the most comprehensive English-language overview of the modern Chinese economy, covering China's economic development since 1949 and post-1978 reforms - from industrial change and agricultural organisation to science and technology. This comprehensive overview of the modern Chinese economy by a noted expert on China's economic development offers a quality and breadth of coverage not found in any other English-language text. In "The Chinese Economy", Barry Naughton provides both an engaging, broadly focused introduction to China's economy since 1949 and original insights based on his own extensive research. The book will be an essential resource for students, teachers, scholars, business people, and policymakers. It is suitable for classroom use for undergraduate or graduate courses. After presenting background material on the pre-1949 economy and the industrialization, reform, and market transition that have taken place since, the book examines different aspects of the modern Chinese economy. It analyses patterns of growth and development, including population growth and the one-child family policy; the rural economy, including agriculture and rural industrialization; industrial and technological development in urban areas; international trade and foreign investment; macroeconomic trends and cycles and the financial system; and the largely unaddressed problems of environmental quality and the sustainability of growth. The text is notable also for placing China's economy in interesting comparative contexts, discussing it in relation to other transitional or developing economies and to such advanced industrial countries as the U.S. and Japan. It provides both a broad historical and macro perspective as well as a focused examination of the actual workings of China's complex and dynamic economic development. Interest in the Chinese economy will only grow as China becomes an increasingly important player on the world's stage. This book will be the standard reference for understanding and teaching about the next economic superpower.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84305 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 504 pages

Asian Affairs, November 2007
Barry Naughton states at the start of his study of the Chinese economy that his work is a text book, and can be used in classes. But this somewhat undersells his achievement, which is to have assembled in highly accessible form, and offered concise and credible interpretation of, the key statistics and known facts about how the Chinese economy operates, what its main characteristics are, and how it has developed over three decades since the Opening Up and Reform Process began in 1978.

...There are many other excellent features of this study. One is the clear description of the contribution Chinese agricultural workers made in the early 1980s to the great reform process, literally revolutionising the way they worked, producing food surpluses, and then moving into semi-industrial Town and Village Enterprises that constitute a huge part of the non-state sector. These, indeed, were the real heroes of the reform process.

About the Author
Barry Naughton is Professor of Chinese Economy and Sokwanlok Chair of Chinese International Affairs at the University of California, San Diego. He is the author of Growing Out of the Plan: Chinese Economic Reform, 1978-1993.

Customer Reviews

one stop shop for Chinese economics
If you want a single book, that is realtively up to date (in China terms) that covers all main areas of the economy in a single book then this is a very good place to start.

Some history of pre PRC and through the pre-reform era. But clearly most of the focus is post 1978 to present day. Covered is economic growth, labour markets, financial reforms, rural and urban reforms etc

Goes beyond the title...
Provides a comprehensive introduction into China's major economic and industrial issues including the relevant historical background. Information boxes offer additional information.