Conferences on China's Economic Transition -Toronto, Canada, Summer 2002 and Pittsburgh, Summer 2003

University Of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

China's protracted boom is a major episode in world economic history. Beginning in the late 1970s, China experienced two decades of extraordinary growth that raised every indicator of material welfare, lifted several hundred million from absolute poverty, and rocketed China from near autarchy into unprecedented global prominence. Current research, however, leaves fundamental questions about the economic, political and social dimensions of this growth process and its future prospects unanswered. To address these issues, this project initiates a major interdisciplinary effort focused on China's long boom of the past two decades. It seeks a comprehensive and integrated analysis of the underpinnings and dynamics of China's protracted growth spurt that will be both path breaking and policy relevant. This project builds on two earlier efforts: one directed by Hugh Patrick and Henry Rosovsky that produced the path-breaking volume Asia's New Giant: How the Japanese Economy Works. A second, organized by Thomas Rawski, inspired a series of volumes that have contributed to deepening the economic content of Chinese historical studies and integrating Chinese experience into the study of global economic history. The project's plan includes two conferences scheduled for summer 2002 and summer 2003. The conferences consider three groups of papers: five overviews that lay out themes, issues, and methods from several interdisciplinary perspectives; fifteen thematic papers that focus on specific dimensions of China's recent economic experience, e.g. openness, international trade and foreign direct investment, agriculture, fiscal policy, and industrial organization and enterprise governance; and three interpretative studies that consider the implications of China's twenty-year boom for China's future evolution, for China-oriented economics research, and for broader studies in economics and social science. The first conference will apply key results from the overviews to enrich and integrate the prospectuses for the thematic studies. The second conference will review the completed thematic studies and apply their results to expand and deepen the initial drafts of the interpretive essays. These papers will result in substantial publications, including a book, tentatively entitled The Transition That Worked, and at least one special journal issue, that will appear in Chinese as well as English. The results of this project will provide a springboard for future China-focused economic inquiry, expand the information base underpinning China-related policy discussions, and stimulate the integration of recent Chinese experience into research on development, transition, and social change.