Narratives of Chinese economic reforms : how does China cross the river? / edited by Xiaobo Zhang, Shenggen Fan, Arjan de Haan.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Introduction: Policy Reforms as a Process of Learning -- The Course of China's Rural Reform -- Collective Learning Capacity and Choice of Reform Path - Theoretical Reflections on the Dual-Track System of Price Reform Process -- The Formation and Evolution of China's Migrant Labor Policy -- Narratives of Wenzhou's Industrial Privatization -- The Process of Establishing and Extending Direct Elections in Rural China -- The Historical Opportunity of the Fiscal Reform -- Fiscal Reform: The Zhejiang Experience -- China's Reforms: Are There Lessons for Other Countries?

Rapid growth in the Chinese economy over the past three decades poses puzzles and challenges to neo-classical economic theory, as policies implemented during the reform process were often unorthodox. Although the Chinese experience has been widely studied, myths and questions about these reforms remain. To fill in the knowledge gap, and to inform a process of learning from China's development successes, this book features a series of case studies on the policy process of different initiatives, including rural industrialization, dual-track price reform, migration policy, village elections and fiscal reform. Uniquely, many of the authors of the case studies were deeply involved in these reforms, either through direct policymaking or through providing analytical and technical support that led to these policy changes. They provide a first-hand account of how the political processes occurred, how social and political entrepreneurs shaped the choices and sequences of various reforms, and how the rigidities and sometimes erroneous beliefs were overcome.