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Why did the communist party reform in China, but not in the Soviet Union? The political economy of agricultural transition

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  • ROZELLE, Scott
  • SWINNEN, Johan F.M.

Abstract

The dramatic transition from Communism to market economies across Asia and Europe started in the Chinese countryside in the 1970s. Since then more than a billion of people, many of them very poor, have been affected by radical reforms in agriculture. However, there are enormous differences in the reform strategies that countries have chosen. This paper presents a set of arguments to explain why countries have chosen different reform policies.

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  • ROZELLE, Scott & SWINNEN, Johan F.M., 2009. "Why did the communist party reform in China, but not in the Soviet Union? The political economy of agricultural transition," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 275-287, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:20:y:2009:i:2:p:275-287
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    2. Ichiro Iwasaki & Taku Suzuki, 2016. "Radicalism Versus Gradualism: An Analytical Survey Of The Transition Strategy Debate," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(4), pages 807-834, September.
    3. Liu, Zhaoyang & Gong, Yazhen & Kontoleon, Andreas, 2018. "How do Payments for Environmental Services Affect Land Tenure? Theory and Evidence From China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C), pages 195-213.
    4. Varga, Mihai, 2020. "Poverty reduction through land transfers? The World Bank’s titling reforms and the making of “subsistence” agriculture," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
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    6. Jie Lu & Angang Hu & Yilong Yan, 2012. "Nonlinear investigations of China's agricultural transformation based on the structural break regime switching model," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 4(1), pages 52-68, January.

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