The Impact of State Resource Allocation on Urbanisation in Socialist China

Li Zhang and Simon Xiaobin Zhao

Post-Communist Economies, 2001, vol. 13, issue 4, 505-524

Abstract: The issue to be addressed in this article is the effect of state resource allocation on Chinese urbanisation. Looking at the key areas of state expenditure, we point out that significant spending on the military and on bureaucratic organisations monopolised a substantial portion of the state's economic and human resources. Such an orientation of resource inputs has sufficed to maintain generally high rates of industrial growth at the expense of civilian interests and has led to a relatively comprehensive industrial structure with an emphasis on heavy industry. However, this pattern of resource allocation has seriously distorted the association between industrialisation and urbanisation as conventionally understood on the basis of Western experience. The allocation of state resources accounted for this irregular association by constraining the growth of non-agricultural employment on the one hand and politicising the acquisition of urban residence rights on the other in the process of economic change.

Date: 2001
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14631370120095684 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:pocoec:v:13:y:2001:i:4:p:505-524

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CPCE20

DOI: 10.1080/14631370120095684

Access Statistics for this article

Post-Communist Economies is currently edited by Roger Clarke

More articles in Post-Communist Economies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().