Growth and equality in rural China

The present study was sponsored within the framework of an on-going ARTEP project on Employment, Income Distribution and Poverty in Asian countries. A principal objective of the project is to analyse changes over time in income distribution and poverty and the determinants and characteristics of poverty in different socio-economic settings. This will involve, among other things, studies on the experience of developing countries in Asia, especially the socialist transformation of agrarian institutions.

It is hoped that the present study, based on the results of the analysis of an extensive body of original data collected by the authors during a field-trip to China in 1979, will constitute a significant contribution towards understanding the experience of a major Asian country in dealing with a dominant objective of economic development that of combining growth and equality in the rural economy.