China's Economic Policy Today: The New State Activism

A noted American authority and investigator of China's economy outlines the general features of the ongoing reorientation of Chinese economic policymaking toward increased state activism, which has gained momentum in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. An initial section of the paper describes the marketization and privatization initiatives of China's late reform period to provide a baseline against which to measure the subsequent shift toward increased state intervention and guidance in the economy. The author traces the shift in three critical policy arenas (social policy, state-owned enterprises, and industrial and technology policy) and demonstrates how state involvement in each intensified during the global financial crisis. He then proceeds to explore the implications of accelerated state activism in the future, identifying potential rewards as well as large risks. Among the latter are macroeconomic imbalances, a "softening" of budget constraints, difficulties in recognizing and terminating unsuccessful economic programs, and tensions with trading partners.     

Store Wars: Changing Retail Ownership in Beijing

Two U.S.-based economic geographers analyze recent changes in retailing activity in Beijing, focusing on changes in store ownership. More specifically, they investigate declines in state ownership in the retail sector since the early 1980s in conjunction with the rapid growth of the domestic private sector and foreign ownership. The paper outlines a new geography of successful (and not-so-successful) retailers that has emerged due to rationalization of the industry, marketization, globalization, as well as government policies at a variety of levels. Changes in store ownership provide insights into the complexity of China's transition, the evolving relations between state and capital, and the role of the local state in the country's economic reforms. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D23, L20, L81, O18. 2 figures, 3 tables, 1 appendix, 114 references.     

Chile's Export Diversification since 1960: A Free Market Miracle or Mirage?

Conventional wisdom has proclaimed Chile's recent economic development a ‘free market miracle’. In an examination of Chile's export diversification experience, this article departs from that view. By analysing the dynamics underlying the emergence of the salmon, fruit, forestry and wine sectors in Chile's export basket since the 1960s, the study sheds light on the crucial role of industrial policy in the process of capability accumulation that shapes new industries. The article undertakes a qualitative historical analysis of the scope and nature of policy interventions in each of the four sectors and conducts a quantitative policy evaluation using the difference‐in‐difference method. It finds that public institutions are essential in overcoming market failures inhibiting the emergence of new industries. Specifically, it shows that the government has a key role to play as a catalyst of human capital accumulation, as a venture capitalist, in trade promotion, and in ensuring ‘national’ sector reputation through a strong regulatory and quality control role. By elaborating on the dynamic process of structural transformation and capability accumulation, this article contributes to theoretical debates on the role of vertical policies in the emergence of new competitive sectors, and debates relating to static versus dynamic approaches to comparative advantage.     

After central planning: The restructuring of state industry in Bulgaria's Bourgas region

Industrial regions in eastern Europe developed under central planning are now confronting the pressures associated with political and economic transition to market‐focused systems. Using the case of the Bourgas region, on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, the article examines how state industries are faring in these new conditions, analyzing developments in production, employment, ownership, management, market‐orientation and other factors. Massive financial and human resources were poured into the region's industrial development during more than four decades of state socialism, building a modem industrial infrastructure, but one heavily characterized by the particular features and constraints of central planning which emphasized quantity over quality and large‐scale, integrated plants. As central control collapses, the region's state‐owned firms are in crisis. Production is down, unemployment has risen, and except for a handful of plants restituted to former owners, privatization is moving slowly. The region's industries have been battered by highly unfavorable outside forces, yet have been mostly unable to marshal the necessary management, financial, or technical resources to implement coherently any indigenous strategic initiatives to address the changed institutional environment and new supply and demand conditions.     

An overview of recent research on modern Chinese economic history

China formally adopted the policy of reform and opening up to the outside world in 1978. Since then, both economic practice and economic theory in China have undergone profound changes, and the academic study of modern Chinese economic history has been encouraged to expand its research horizons under the rubric of “liberating the mind and seeking truth in the facts”. A number of important monographs and essays have been produced and the study of modern Chinese economic history has entered a flourishing period. Current research focuses on two major topics: China's New Democratic economy and the planned economy during the period 1949–78; and, China's socialist market economy from 1978–2006. The study of these two areas shows numerous interconnections, points of comparison and causal links. The many and important lessons to be drawn from these studies both exhibit Chinese characteristics and have universal implications.     

Learning by Debating

This essay traces the main lines of debate among economists during the course of China's reform. It first reviews how the market has become legitimated in the country. Then it examines three schools of thought that have emerged from an ongoing debate over the economic role of the state in China's “socialist market economy.” Debates have transformed radically the conceptual frameworks of economists, as well as policymakers, and thereby have exerted enormous influence on the policy process.     

Improvised Hybridity in the “Fixing” of Chinese Infrastructure Capital: The Case of Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway

The article explores the role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the globalisation of China's infrastructure capital. Examining how accumulation strategies of Chinese SOEs are driven by a complex set of political and economic, state and private, interests, it foregrounds the inherently hybrid nature of China's state capitalism. We use Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as a case study to analyse how state infrastructure capital traverses borders, and the specific ways that contradictions of accumulation in China are relocated through the improvised hybridity of SOEs. In Kenya, China Road and Bridge Corporation, the main SGR contractor, shifted and adapted its strategies as the pursuit of economic productivity gave way to political priorities in China, simultaneously responding to changing socio-political circumstances in Kenya and across East Africa. Analysing these dynamics, we highlight the contingencies of, and limitations to, structural reorganisation of actually existing forms of state capitalism in China and beyond.     

Politics,Society and Financial Liberalization: Turkey in the 1990s

This article focuses on the political economy of Turkey in the 1990s to illustrate the importance of analysing economic variables that intersect with the quality of political democracy. In 1989, the debt‐ridden state moved to systematically and completely deregulate Turkey’s financial markets. Together with the ongoing processes of liberalizing commodity markets and integrating with global capital markets, financial liberalization was expected to achieve fiscal and monetary stability, stimulate business confidence to invest in productive sectors, produce stable growth, encourage privatization and control inflation. However, the new hegemony of the capital markets has gone hand‐in‐hand with deteriorating macroeconomic performance, a worsening income distribution, the discrediting of politics and its isolation from society. The authors examine several key dynamics which are helping to legitimate the neoliberal agenda of the 1990s. These include the distribution of state largesse to manipulate electoral capitalism; the rise of an informal sector in the ‘Anatolian Tigers’; promotion of the seductive attractions of the market; and an antipolitical reform populism adopted by political actors to exploit popular disillusionment with the political system.     

Funding Economic Transition in China: The Privatization Option

An American specialist on the economy of China examines whether gradual and partial privatization remains a viable option for the future, or whether rapid privatization of remaining state-owned enterprises is now necessary. The paper presents estimates indicating that rising expenditures stemming from changes in the country's economy, demographics, and technology will increase fiscal pressure on government revenues, resulting in fiscal shortfalls and exposing other vulnerabilities. Privatization is then assessed in terms of its potential to generate additional resources to support the next round of economic growth in China. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E62, H10, P20. 1 table, 54 references.     

Looking in the wrong direction? Reflections on Italy's most recent ‘crisis’

This paper argues that, rather than focus on Italy's well-known institutional deficits, especially vis-à-vis its larger, more prosperous European neighbours, we should examine instead the experiences of another set of countries (India, Israel, etc.) that have promoted economic reform and growth through entrepreneurship. Relying on cross-national networks to provide local firms with capital, technology, market access and managerial skills, firms in these other countries were able to supplement or even circumvent institutional deficiencies in their home countries and build successful enterprises. Perhaps a similar strategy could be pursued by Italy's small and medium-sized firms and thus help relaunch growth in the Italian economy.     

The Economic Geography of Australia and Its Analysis: From Industrial to Post‐Industrial Regions

The Australian economy has experienced profound change over the last five decades, moving from an industrial to a post‐industrial structure. This transformation has had far‐reaching implications for the nature of economic activity in Australia and has provided the backdrop for the evolving analysis of the nation's space economy. The paper argues that three interrelated themes underpin much of the work of economic geographers in Australia: the impacts of globalisation on Australia's space economy; neoliberalism and the governance of regions; and policy‐focused analysis of regions, their history and prospects. The paper concludes that economic geography will continue to make important intellectual and practical contributions to Australia in the near future as the reshaping of the Australian economy continues and as new challenges reshape the nation's regions.     

Ukraine's Financial Crisis, 2009

A prominent specialist in the economic affairs of the former Soviet Union relates and analyzes the state of Ukraine's economy in light of a series of discussions and interviews with the country's Prime Minister and leading economic officials in Kyiv in 2008 and April 2009. The author, a former economic advisor to the country's government and co-chair of the UN's Blue Ribbon Commission for Ukraine, devotes this paper to a penetrating analysis of the impact of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 on Ukraine's budget, banks, exchange rates, money supply, industrial sectors (particularly energy and steel), GDP, and inflationary pressures. Due attention is given to economic relations with the EU and Russia as well as to financial assistance from the IMF.Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: E500, E600, O520, P200. 1 table, 4 figures, 38 references.     

The Industrial Nodes of the Middle Volga

A typology of industrial nodes based on such economic factors as the use of local or long-haul raw materials, the importance of the national market for each node's finished products, the level of industrial employment, electrification of production processes, output per unit of capital investment, and labor productivity.     

The Impact of State-Controlled Banks on the Russian Banking Sector

A senior Russian economist examines the structure, governance, and balance sheets of state-controlled banks in Russia, which accounted for over 55 percent of the total assets in the country's banking system in early 2011. The author offers a credible estimate of the size of the country's state banking sector by including banks that are indirectly owned by public organizations. Contrary to some predictions based on the theoretical literature on economic transition, he explains the relatively high profitability and efficiency of Russian state-controlled banks by pointing to their competitive position in such functions as acquisition and disposal of assets on behalf of the government. Also suggested in the paper is a different way of looking at market concentration in Russia (by consolidating the market shares of core state-controlled banks), which produces a picture of a more concentrated market than officially reported. Lastly, one of the author's interesting conclusions is that China provides a better benchmark than the formerly centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe by which to assess the viability of state ownership of banks in Russia and to evaluate the country's banking sector.     

刘少奇对社会主义商品经济的理论探讨及其实践

刘少奇在对社会主义商品经济的理论探讨及其具体实践中 ,提出了许多富有创见的思想观点 :提出两种社会主义公有制都不存在时商品经济还会存在 ;许多生产资料可以作为商品流通 ;从对社会主义劳动力采用了商品形式、不要回避剩余劳动和剩余价值问题的认识出发 ,提出要改革社会主义劳动制度和工资制度 ;他把社会主义公有制、有计划按比例规律与商品经济和价值规律联系起来考察 ,显露出思想深处关于社会主义有计划商品经济的端倪。他的相关论述能够反映出这样的观点 :价值规律是有关发展商品生产、商品交换和分配的规律。他运用价值规律解决实际问题 ,提出用经济办法管理经济、领导自由市场的观点 ;要求遵循价值规律 ,实现企业管理的自主权和独立的经济核算权。     

International regulation and regional development: Consequences of the single European market for small and medium sized enterprises in Portugal

In seeking to understand contexts for regional development an increasingly important element is the growing influence of international institutions and agreements in the regulation of economic systems. Within Europe the economic liberalization and increased market competition encouraged by the Single European Market (SEM) has been widely predicted to benefit larger elements of capital and core regions of economic activity at the expense of Europe's smaller firms and less favoured peripheral regions. Through analysis of results from empirical research, this paper will analyze the impact of the SEM on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in north and central Portugal. The significance of sectoral and spatial variations in impact are examined by considering two industrial sectors, food and clothing, and the effectiveness of firms’ responses and policy initiatives in mediating the potentially negative impacts of Single Market competition are evaluated.     

Structural Change and Regional Disparities in Xinjiang,China

The paper by a noted American geographer and a specialist based in Germany examines and analyzes recent economic growth and structural change in the strategically significant and resource-rich (including oil and gas deposits) region of Xinjiang. The authors identify regional variation in the trajectory of economic development at the urban and county levels, employing conceptual approaches related to structural shifts in economic sectors and focusing on shifts in employment from agriculture to activities in the secondary and tertiary sectors. They also investigate the role of the tertiary sector using a labor transition model, examining its functioning in the context of the industrial sector's absorption of labor in the transitional economy of China. Calculations are based on the most recent official statistical data released by national and regional governments and available at present (mid-2006). Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: J21, J24, O18, R11. 9 figures, 4 tables, 45 references.     

陈云经济思想发展和层次提升问题

陈云经济思想在东北解放区后期、三大改造完成后和新时期三次大的整合中,形成的新中国经济计划化、企业化和管理民主化“三位一体”框架、“三个主体、三个补充”的体系架构和“三个两种”+“四跨”三大模式,既是探索中国经济发展道路和建立社会主义市场经济递进历史的真实记录,又实现了陈云经济思想的层次提升。把握这一特点,有利于全面理解陈云经济思想,廓清中国共产党经济思想史和新中国经济史上的诸多迷雾。     

Russia and China: converging responses to globalization

This article compares the impact of globalization on the political systems and political economy of Russia and China since the beginning of their respective reform periods. Overall, it argues that both should now be viewed within the paradigm of ‘developmental states’. The article first presents some comparative economic statistics on the changes that have taken place. Second, it looks at the converging attitudes of the two regimes towards industrial restructuring and privatization, highlighting the continued role that they both reserve for state direction. This includes an orientation towards national industrial champions. Third, the evolution of policies of both states towards guided democratization are discussed leading to an assessment of the importance of nationalism in their responses to globalization, particularly in the recent doctrine of ‘sovereign democracy’ of Putin's United Russia party. Finally, the article argues that a greater wariness towards western recipes for political and economic development will frame the efforts of both states to construct a more cooperative bilateral relationship.     

Workers,Unions and the State: Migrant Workers in China's Labour‐intensive Foreign Enterprises

Migrant workers present a new challenge both to China's increasingly diversified industrial relations and to its state–society relationship, especially vis‐à‐vis China's developmental state. Through an examination of the situation of migrant workers in the country's labour‐intensive foreign investment enterprises, this article argues that it is difficult to establish tripartite industrial relations in China and that pluralistic labour organizations will not easily develop into civil society type labour entities. China's developmental state is in an ambiguous process in redefining its role. Its ability to micro‐manage society is weakening substantially. However, its developmental character at the macro‐level largely remains strong, allowing it to continue to restrict progress towards civil society. The future will ultimately depend on a collective determination by key players — the workers, unions and the state — to find a compromise.