Ebook: How reform worked in China: the transition from plan to market

As China has transformed itself from a centrally planned economy to a market economy, economists have tried to understand and interpret the success of Chinese reform. As the Chinese economist Yingyi Qian explains, there are two schools of thought on Chinese reform: the 'School of Universal Principles, ' which ascribes China's successful reform to the workings of the free market, and the 'School of Chinese Characteristics, ' which holds that China's reform is successful precisely because it did not follow the economics of the market but instead relied on the government. In this work, Qian offers a third perspective, taking certain elements from each school of thought but emphasizing not why reform worked but how it did.