The remarkable pace of economic growth in rural China over the last two decades cannot be understood without reference to post-1978 policy change. However, using a newly created data set that covers a third of China's counties, this article shows that growth was path-dependent: those counties where the industrial base was well-developed at the time of Mao's death grew rapidly over the next two decades, and vice versa. The continuities in Chinese economic growth across the 'great divide' of 1978 should be recognized: the growth of the Dengist era bore the imprint of the Chinese past. Nevertheless, the importance of path dependency should not be overstated. The industrial legacies of the Maoist and Republican eras were not always conducive to growth, and some counties supplemented their meagre inheritance by importing labour from the Chinese interior, or by attracting capital from abroad. Furthermore, despite the positive legacies of the past, the success of Chinese rural industrialization remains in doubt.
Asian Business & Management (2003) 2, 301-321. doi:10.1057/palgrave.abm.9200057 |
