This paper uses a national survey of 200 Chinese town and village enterprises (TVEs) from 1985 to 1990 to explore empirically the effect of contractual arrangements on the performance of enterprises under Chinese institutional conditions. A theoretical model that emphasizes a potentially...

In advanced industrial economies it is accepted that efficiency requires aligning managerial autonomy in decision-making with managerial incentives. Should this hold for economies like that of rural China where (at least until very recently) managers might abuse autonomy and government owners...

Recent research convincingly shows that crises beget reform. Although the consensus is that economic crises foster macroeconomic stabilization, it is silent on which types of crises cause which types of reform. Is it economic or political crises that are the most important drivers of structural...