TY - BOOK AU - Ang,Yuen Yuen TI - How China Escaped the Poverty Trap T2 - Cornell Studies in Political Economy SN - 9781501705854 AV - HC427.92 .A74 2016eb U1 - 338.951 23 PY - 2016///] CY - Ithaca, NY PB - Cornell University Press KW - Economic development KW - China KW - Developing countries KW - Poverty KW - Asian Studies KW - General Economics KW - Political Science & Political History KW - HISTORY / Asia / China KW - bisacsh KW - economic conditions in china, history of chinese economy, chinese economic policy, economic development in china N1 - Frontmatter --; Contents --; Figures and Tables --; Preface --; Acknowledgments --; Introduction: HOW DID DEVELOPMENT ACTUALLY HAPPEN? --; Part 1. FRAMEWORK AND BUILDING BLOCKS --; 1 MAPPING COEVOLUTION --; 2 DIRECTED IMPROVISATION --; Part 2. DIRECTION --; 3 BALANCING VARIETY AND UNIFORMITY --; 4 FRANCHISING THE BUREAUCRACY --; Part 3. IMPROVISATION --; 5 FROM BUILDING TO PRESERVING MARKETS --; 6 CONNECTING FIRST MOVERS AND LAGGARDS --; Conclusion: HOW DEVELOPMENT ACTUALLY HAPPENED BEYOND CHINA --; Appendix A: STEPS FOR MAPPING COEVOLUTION --; Appendix B: INTERVIEWS --; Notes --; References --; Index; restricted access N2 - ‹p›‹b›WINNER OF THE 2017 PETER KATZENSTEIN BOOK PRIZE"BEST OF BOOKS IN 2017" BY FOREIGN AFFAIRSWINNER OF THE 2018 VIVIAN ZELIZER PRIZE BEST BOOK AWARD IN ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY‹/b›"‹i›‹b›How China Escaped the Poverty Trap‹/b›‹/i› truly offers game-changing ideas for the analysis and implementation of socio-economic development and should have a major impact across many social sciences."- Zelizer Best Book in Economic Sociology Prize Committee‹/p›‹p›Acclaimed as "game changing" and "field shifting," ‹b›‹i›How China Escaped the Poverty Trap‹/i› ‹/b›advances a new paradigm in the political economy of development and sheds new light on China's rise.‹/p›‹p›How can poor and weak societies escape poverty traps? Political economists have traditionally offered three answers: "stimulate growth first," "build good institutions first," or "some fortunate nations inherited good institutions that led to growth."‹/p›‹p›Yuen Yuen Ang rejects all three schools of thought and their underlying assumptions: linear causation, a mechanistic worldview, and historical determinism. Instead, she launches a new paradigm grounded in complex adaptive systems, which embraces the reality of interdependence and humanity's capacity to innovate.‹/p›‹p›Combining this original lens with more than 400 interviews with Chinese bureaucrats and entrepreneurs, Ang systematically reenacts the complex process that turned China from a communist backwater into a global juggernaut in just 35 years. Contrary to popular misconceptions, she shows that what drove China's great transformation was not centralized authoritarian control, but "directed improvisation"—top-down directions from Beijing paired with bottom-up improvisation among local officials.‹/p›‹p›Her analysis reveals two broad lessons on development. First, transformative change requires an adaptive governing system that empowers ground-level actors to create new solutions for evolving problems. Second, the first step out of the poverty trap is to "use what you have"—harnessing existing resources to kick-start new markets, even if that means defying first-world norms.‹/p›‹p›Bold and meticulously researched, ‹b›‹i›How China Escaped the Poverty Trap‹/i› ‹/b›opens up a whole new avenue of thinking for scholars, practitioners, and anyone seeking to build adaptive systems.‹/p› UR - https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501705854 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781501705854 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9781501705854/original ER -