The economy of China: a tourist's view
Abstract
Three American economists visited China for two weeks in September
1972 as guests of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University.
The paper reports one visitor's impressions of the Chinese economy and of
Chinese economics. The impressions of the economy are organized around a
speculative construction of the national accounts of China, designed to make
scattered bits of information into a consistent picture of the interrelations
of agriculture, industry, and government. The manner in which the countryside
is organized in people's communes is described, and income differences
within agriculture, within industry, and between sectors are discussed.
Finally, the state of the Chinese universities in general, and of academic
economics in particular, following the disruptions of the Cultural Revolution
is described.