Poverty in China since 1950: A Counterfactual Perspective

Martin Ravallion

No 28370, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The other side of the coin to post-reform success is often pre-reform failure, and the policy lessons are found on both sides. The paper estimates how much of China’s poverty rate around 1980—near the outset of Deng Xiaoping’s pro-market reforms—is attributable to the prior Maoist regime. Based on the history, it is argued that South Korea and Taiwan provide a relevant counterfactual. Then a difference-in-difference estimate using historical data indicates that about two thirds of China’s poverty in 1980 is attributed to the impact of the Maoist path since 1950. Further checks and tests suggest that (if anything) this is likely to be an underestimate. It took 10-20 years for China’s post-reform economy to make up the lost ground. The impact of the Maoist path had begun to fade in the 1970s, and half or more of the catch-up was in period up to 1990, under Deng’s rule.

JEL-codes: I32 N35 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cna, nep-his and nep-tra
Note: DEV
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28370.pdf (application/pdf)

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:nbr:nberwo:28370

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w28370

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().