PI: Beverly J. Silver Co-PI: Shaohua Zhan Institution: Johns Hopkins University
The study investigates the causes of rapid rural economic growth in China during the 1980s and early 1990s. The researchers hypothesize that post-1949 governmental policies improving the status and welfare of lower classes created the preconditions for the later emergence of small-scale, labor-intensive rural enterprises. Data will be gathered from official statistics, government policy documents, and field research in two villages (one in Jiangsu Province and the other in Inner Mongolia).
Broader Impacts: The rapid rural economic growth in China lifted more than 200 million people out of poverty. This research lays the foundation for asking whether and to what extent this labor-intensive, resource-saving model is sustainable in China and can be replicated elsewhere as a solution to global ecological constraints and mass under-employment worldwide.
The goal of our research has been to examine the causal relationship between state policies on land, investment, education and health care, on the one hand, and rapid rural economic growth in China in the 1980s and early 1990s, on the other hand. Our research found that the rapid rural economic growth of the 1980s and early 1990s can be characterized as an "industrious revolution" similar to the economic expansion that took place in 18th century China. In both instances, state policies that supported small rural producers made the "industrious revolution" possible. We also evaluated changes in Chinese rural economy in the late 1990s and after, when some of the state policies that had favored small-scale rural production were changed or reversed. Debates over the determinants of economic development divide scholars into those who emphasize the importance of free markets as the source of economic development and those who maintain that a strong autonomous developmental state has played the central role. Our research moves beyond this dichotomy by showing how state intervention in support of small rural household enterprises producing for both subsistence and the market led to a period of major economic expansion. This pattern of economic development is particularly suitable for developing countries like China that face population pressure and resource constraints. This model of economic development, if replicated in developing countries in South Asia, Africa and Latin America, could provide an alternative path to economic prosperity and lift hundreds of millions people out of poverty.
