This book provides a historical economic analysis of two key issues relating to township and village enterprise (TVE) development in China. Firstly, the nature of the evolving relationship between TVEs and local government; in particular how TVE entrepreneurs have used institutionalized power to secure the political influence needed to defend their financial independence. Secondly, the relationship between TVEs and state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and the role of SOEs in China’s economic transition. This study highlights the importance of the role of SOEs in the “dual-track pricing system” and its impact on other parts of the economy. Township and village enterprises were key to China's success in the late twentieth century, but have more or less disappeared as an entity over the past decade or so. By measuring the structural difference of the SOE sector before and after 1998–2003 SOE reform, Jin explains their fast catch-up in productivity since the mid-1990s, as well as the relative decline of TVE productivity.

This title was first published in 2000: This work provides a new insight into china's township and village enterprises (TVEs). It views the governance structure of TVEs as effectively combining the comparative advantage of local government officials in external management and of dual firm managers in internal management to overcome imperfections in both market and government during the transitional period. Through extensive field investigation analysis and case studies, this work shows that the governance structure of TVEs has been evolving during the past fifteen years. To adapt to the changing environment, TVEs have continuously innovated firm contractual form from a government official dominant fixed-wage form to a partnership style profit-sharing form, then to a privatization oriented fixed-rent form. This work develops a complete model to explain how the central government’s partial reform efforts in market liberalization have become the driving force to induce the contractual form innovation, and to explicate how heterogeneity in firms’ technical structures and in local economic settings may affect local government’s decisions regarding contractual form innovation. Using the author’s unique data set, the model simulations predict that the development in the whole market system will result in the diffusion of contractual form innovation and lead to an 'induced privatization’ in this sector. The following empirical studies show this to be a powerful prediction and the progress toward such ’induced privatization' can be expected in China in near future. This research work provides a rich empirical study on China’s institutional transition towards a market system. It explains how a bottom-up endogenous, instead of top-down exogenous, property rights reform can be realized in transitional economies. This work will serve as a valuable reference for researchers and students in economics, economic development and institutional economics - and especially for those interested in research.

This dissertation, "The Growth of Township and Village Enterprises and Rural Economic Development in China: a Comparative Study of Guangdong and Guizhou Provinces, 1984-2000" by Kit-yee, Cheng, 鄭潔儀, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of dissertation entitled The Growth of Township and Village Enterprises and Rural Economic Development in China: A Comparative Study of Guangdong and Guizhou Provinces, 1984-2000 Submitted by Cheng Kit Yee for the Master of Arts in China Area Studies at the University of Hong Kong in June 2003 Since the 1980s, China's economic reforms have brought remarkable changes to its rural economy. The rapid growth and restructuring of the Chinese economy over the last two decades have attracted the attention of scholars to study the nature and process of change in rural China in different fields. One of the important fields of study concerns about China's Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs) and their explicit contributions to the Chinese rural economy. It is believed that TVEs have effectively absorbed rural surplus labourers and enhanced the living standard of the rural population. This research examines the relationship between TVEs and rural economic development in two selected provinces - Guangdong on the eastern coast and Guizhou in the interior. TVEs in Guangdong played a more significant role by facilitating rural economic development from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s and transforming the rural economy into one with an export orientation. In recent years, however, TVEs have suffered from stagnant growth because of structural adjustments. By comparison, TVEs in Guizhou have been more stable and played a consistent role in rural economic development. The significance of TVEs in the rural economy of Guizhou is found to be a consequence of the regional nature of its economy. The findings of this study lend support the argument that the development of TVEs is one of the solutions to poverty in China. However, TVEs have also caused serious problems such as massive rural migration and environmental degradation in the countryside in the recent two decades. Therefore, this study stresses the importance of necessary state intervention and regulation to facilitate further sustainable development of TVEs in the future. DOI: 10.5353/th_b2666935 Subjects: Rural industries - China - Guangdong Sheng Rural industries - China - Guizhou Sheng Rural development - China - Guangdong Sheng Rural development - China - Guizhou Sheng

This collection of papers presented at an international conference in 1987 provides a comprehensive analysis of China's booming rural non-state industrial sector, both collective and private.

This book reports the findings of two field studies conducted between 1993 and 2001 in seven townships and six provinces in China. The authors describe the process of rural urbanization and its related economic, social, and political changes by focusing mainly on the zhen (town), in addition to administrative offices and companies involved in the local economy, and village committees. The authors show that the social changes resulting from China's economic reforms are occurring mainly from below, and that this process is also resulting in a weakening of the economic and political dominance of the central government. Other changes discussed in this study include the development of new ownership structures and the increasing dominance of the private sector; a shift in the functions of administrative offices as the bureaucracy becomes increasingly business oriented; the rise of a new local elite; a rebirth of traditional social structures (clans, local associations); and the emergence of new interest groups and institutions to represent their needs.

Originally published in 1995 this volume examines and analyzes the factors that have made the township-village enterprise (TVE) such a driver of growth in the Chinese economy in recent years. The book analyzes the background of the TVE and discusses regional differences in TVE efficiency as well as examining the apparent contradiction of the success of the TVE despite the lack of well-defined property rights. Issues of rural-rural and rural-urban migration phenomena are discussed and the differences discussed between the Chinese economy and those of other developing nations.