Capitalism from Below: Markets and Institutional Change in China

Victor Nee; Sonja Opper

Published by Harvard University Press 2012

Capitalism from Below

Markets and Institutional Change in China

Victor Nee and Sonja Opper

https://doi.org/10.4159/harvard.9780674065390

Overview
Contents

About this book

More than 630 million Chinese have escaped poverty since the 1980s, reducing the fraction remaining from 82 to 10 percent of the population. This astonishing decline in poverty, the largest in history, coincided with the rapid growth of a private enterprise economy. Yet private enterprise in China emerged in spite of impediments set up by the Chinese government. How did private enterprise overcome these initial obstacles, to become the engine of China’s economic miracle? Where did capitalism come from?

Studying over 700 manufacturing firms in the Yangzi region, Victor Nee and Sonja Opper argue that China’s private enterprise economy bubbled up from below. Through trial and error, entrepreneurs devised institutional innovations that enabled them to decouple from the established economic order to start up and grow small, private manufacturing firms. Barriers to entry motivated them to build their own networks of suppliers and distributors, and to develop competitive advantage in self-organized industrial clusters. Close-knit groups of like-minded people participated in the emergence of private enterprise by offering financing and establishing reliable business norms.

This rapidly growing private enterprise economy diffused throughout the coastal regions of China and, passing through a series of tipping points, eroded the market share of state-owned firms. Only after this fledgling economy emerged as a dynamic engine of economic growth, wealth creation, and manufacturing jobs did the political elite legitimize it as a way to jump-start China’s market society. Today, this private enterprise economy is one of the greatest success stories in the history of capitalism.

Author / Editor information

Nee Victor :

Victor Nee is the Frank and Rosa Rhodes Professor at Cornell University, and Director of the Center for the Study of Economy and Society.Opper Sonja :

Sonja Opper is Gad Rausing Professor of International Economics and Business at Lund University.

Topics

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	i
Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Figures and Tables Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xiii
1. Where Do Economic Institutions Come From? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Markets and Endogenous Institutional Change Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	12
3. The Epicenter of Bottom-Up Capitalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
4. Entrepreneurs and Institutional Innovation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
5. Legitimacy and Organizational Change Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
6. Industrial Clusters and Competitive Advantage Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
7. The Development of Labor Markets Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
8. Institutions of Innovation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
9. Political Economy of Capitalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	226
10. Conclusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
APPENDIX 1. Firm Surveys Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
APPENDIX 2. List of Interviewees Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	351
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	355
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	401
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	423

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 360
Illustrations
- Other: 5 line illustrations, 2 maps, 15 graphs, 29 tables

eBook

Published: June 19, 2012
ISBN: 9780674065390