Category Archives: Chinese economy
Is Industrial Revolution an accident? Reflections on The Great Divergence by Kenneth Pomeranz
The book is the main reading for my course Economic History of China. Pomeranz’s main argument is simple: Europe and China pursued divergent paths of economic development, one capital-intensive and the other labor-intensive, largely because Europe had the New World to supply them with adequate energy, resources, and labor. I found most parts of his reasoning convincing. In the following, I …
Notes on the China’s Ming Dynasty
I have been reading Ray Huang’s book China: A Macro History. Huang analyzed Chinese history with a macro economic and social perspective, pointing out the long-term effects of many seemingly trivial events. It is definitely worth reading, either for foreigners to get an idea of Chinese history or for Chinese readers to refresh their memory and …
Scarcity and locality reflected in Chinese pre-industrial societies
In Patricia Crone’s book Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World, she put forward an interesting argument: scarcity and locality of activities are the two fundamental features of pre-industrial societies, and they justified the existence and development of various economic, political, and social institutions and policies in the pre-industrial world. It is interesting to relate this …
Why did the Chinese empire last for so long?
But once I started to think about it, it’s hard to put it off my mind. Of course, this is an open-ended question. Recently I’ve been reading The Gain and Loss of Chinese Political Affairs In All The Past Dynasties (中国历代政治得失) by Mu Chien (钱穆). The book has sparkled some thoughts for me that I think worth noting down …
China’s rural land right on the agenda
Premier Wen Jiabao called for protection of farmers’ land rights when he visited the southern province of Guangdong (WSJ). Conflicts on the allocation of land rights have existed for a long time and needs a solution. Premier Wen appealed that farmers should have a real collective say in the land allocation. But no one knows when the social tension will be …
Notes on Chinese economic development in Song dynasty
The following thoughts are based on The Pattern of the Chinese Past by Mark Elvin. Many Chinese would perceive the Tang dynasty as the most prosperous period in the Chinese history. If measured in cultural diversity and openness to foreign countries, the Tang dynasty might be unrivalled. But a couple of important technological inventions and …
Microfinance in China
Microfinance is a way to lift people out of poverty. The poor have little income and are often subject to credit constraints (liquidity constraints). So they cannot invest in production tools and are trapped in poverty. Microfinance provides the poor with small amount of loans and support their investments for the longer horizons. I once talked …
China’s massive rural-urban migration: the dark side
According to the National Bureau of Statistics in China, the Chinese urban population consists of more than 50% of the total population now. A brief overview of this issue is here. This topic has been going on in China for quite some time. When People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, urban residents made up …
The impact of China’s one-child policy
This article is an excerpt from my research paper “Re-thinking about China’s One-Child Policy”. I reviewed the existing literature about one-child policy and summarized the impact of it. The one-child policy has reduced the fertility level in China substantially. As the following graph shows, China’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has declined from around 6 in the …
Professor Wu Jinglian on the Comprehensive Plan of China’s Reforms
maryandmusic ♦ March 24, 2012 ♦ Leave a Comment
Professor Wu Jinglian (bio) is a renowned Chinese economist and one of the leading figures in China’s economic reform. He came to Hong Kong University yesterday and delivered a public lecture named “Comprehensive Plan and Top-Level Design for China’s Reforms”. The following points are what I found the most interesting in his speech: 1. The meaning of “comprehensive plan”. The term …
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