Property Rights and Economic Reform in China

China s rapid economic growth during the past two decades has occurred without the systematic privatization programs once urged upon the former Communist regimes of Europe and the USSR. Some observers have argued that this shows that changes in property rights are not important in reforming a command economy; others insist that in China a fa ade of public ownership hides a variety of ownership forms that are essentially private in nature. This volume seeks to adjudicate these opposing views by clarifying conceptually and factually the pattern of property rights changes in the contemporary Chinese economy. The contributors to this volume, from the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology, have all conducted fieldwork in China on specific economic sectors or enterprise types. Working with a common definitional framework derived from the work of the institutional economist Harold Demsetz, they seek to establish which actors exercise what kinds of rights in practice over what kinds of economic assets, documenting changes through time. Most of the essays examine the rural industrial economy the fastest-growing sector or the spin-off economic enterprises and activities of public enterprises and institutions.