How China Escaped the Poverty Trap

How China Escaped the Poverty Trap offers a new paradigm in the political economy of development, rejecting linear causation, a mechanistic worldview, and historical determinism. It combines complex adaptive systems with over 400 interviews with Chinese bureaucrats and entrepreneurs to show that transformative change requires an adaptive governing system and using existing resources to kick-start new markets.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 344 pages
Publication date: 15 March 2022
Publisher: Cornell University Press

Acclaimed as game changing and field shifting, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap advances a new paradigm in the political economy of development and sheds new light on China's rise.

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.

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.

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.

Her analysis reveals two broad lessons on development. First, transformative change requires an adaptive governing system that can learn from experience and adjust to changing circumstances. Second, successful development requires a combination of top-down directives and bottom-up improvisation, as well as a willingness to embrace complexity and uncertainty.

How China Escaped the Poverty Trap is a groundbreaking work that will have a major impact across many social sciences, challenging our understanding of development and offering new insights into China's remarkable success.

Weight: 524g
Dimension: 151 x 229 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781501764561