Institutional Change and Rural Industrialization in China

This book explores the development of the putting-out system in hand-woven textile industries in late Qing Dynasty and China's Republican Period. In classic sociology theory, the putting-out system in handcraft production was regarded as traditional and inefficient. In the context of Republican China, it was believed that this kind of household-based production system would have totally failed in competition with the factory system of machinery production. However, this book exhibits the historical fact that the putting-out system was booming in handcraft textile production and subsequently provides an explanation to this phenomenon from the perspectives of institutional analysis and quantitative modeling. With rich county-level data and comprehensive analysis, this book is valuable for both researchers, academics and students in economics and social history studies.

Contents: Introduction: Smithian Growth or Involution Growth?Literature Review on the Handicraft Industry and Institutional ChangeProto-industrialization in the Industrial Era: A Historical Study about the Cotton Textile Industry in North China'Involution' and 'Industrialization': Investigation of the Cotton Textile Industry in the South of the Yangtze RiverQuantitative Analysis on Institutional Change and Rural IndustrializationThe Putting-out System and the Prosperity of Rural Homespun IndustryConclusion: Commercialization, Institutional Change and Rural Industrialization
Readership: Undergraduates, graduates, academics and researchers who are interested in commercialization, institutional change and rural industrialization in China.
Key Features:Provides quantitative modeling analysis of Chinese economic historyContains rich county-level data on Republican ChinaProvides historical analysis of new institutionalism