Capital Ideas is now Chicago Booth Review but unfortunately original articles are no longer available. If you click through you will be taken to the Internet Archive site to find an archived copy.
Just 20 years ago, China was among the world’s poorest countries, with 80 percent of the population living on incomes of less than $1 a day. Since China launched its economic reform program in 1978, its transition from a centrally planned to a market-based economy has fueled one of the world’s highest growth rates. Most often, a movement to market is about a devolution of power from the central government to the private sector. But one of the perils of gradual reform is the possibility that it will give rise to new economic distortions, the removal of which poses new and unexpected challenges to reformers. Chicago international economics and finance professor Alwyn Young stands on the sidelines of the Chinese free market fanfare and produces evidence that China’s journey to the private sector has taken some unexpected turns.
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