This text investigates the characteristics, achievements and difficulties in reforming the producer and procurement pricing system in China. It attempts to show how the price system moved from a high degree of control in a rigid command economy to partial control in a more decentralized economy.

Inhalt

Part 1 Historical and international context: introduction; Socialist pricing; East European experience; East European experience; Chinese experience to 1978. Part 2 From adjustment towards liberalization: goals of price reform; positions on price reform; debates on price reform package; three stages of price reform; price reform in 5 commodities; summary. Part 3 Administrative price reform in theory and practice: price formation principles; pre-1978 practice; practice during 1979-86; institutional conflicts and problems; summary. Part 4 Price regulation in intersectoral total output: effect of direct and indirect planning on output; cotton; coal; summary. Part 5 Price regulation in intra-sectoral output composition: coexistence of shortages and surpluses; production and consumption; influence of prices; non-price influences; evaluation of new policy; summary. Part 6 Evolution of dual pricing: objects and purposes; development of dual pricing; respective scopes of fixed and free price regulation; short term effects; problems of administrative management; theoretical debates and new policy; summary. Part 7 Price-responsiveness of state enterprises: theory; pre-reform reality; development of dual dependence firms after 1979; theoretical post-reform models; the mixed market model - bicycles and chemical fertilizers; the sellers' market model - steel and coal; summary. Part 8 Summary and conclusion: characteristics of Chinese price reform; achievements and problems; future development and obstacles.