The Chinese EconomyThe main purpose of this book is to apply the basic tools of economic analysis to the economy of the Peoples' Republic of China. It is written for students of economics who would like to understand China, for students of China who would like to understand economics, and for professional economists and lay readers who would like to understand the Chinese economy.The study of the Chinese economy is interesting to economists for several reasons. First, China has a different cultural background and a different set of social and political institutions from the Western countries, in which most of the tools of economic analysis have been developed. It is therefore interesting to see how these tools can be applied to China and how they ought to be further developed or modified in the Chinese context. Second, many drastic changes in economic policy and economic institutions have taken place since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Such important experiments in economics provide rare opportunities to study their results. Third, since the later 1970s much more information on the Chinese economy has become available. It is time for us to digest, to scrutinize, and possibly to help improve the economic data on China. |
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administrative agricultural output agricultural sector Almanac of China's assumed average b₁ b₂ Beijing billion birth rate Bureau centrally planned economy Chinese economy Chinese government Chinese industry Cobb-Douglas column commodities consumer consumption demand and supply demand function determined discussed distribution effect efficient equal equation estimate example exchange rate expenditure explain exports farmers Figure foreign given gross output growth Harrod-Domar model important income effect increase indifference curve industrial enterprises industrial production inputs investment j₁ labor land Lathe Factory light industry marginal cost marginal product market economy materials national income p₁ p₂ percent population problems production function production transformation curve profit ratio real income relative price revenue Section state-owned enterprises Statistical Yearbook Table tion trade U.S. dollars units of cloth units of rice urban utility function variables wage rate workers x₁ y₁ Yearbook of China yuan