The Political Development Cycle: The Right and the Left in People's Republic of China from 1953
Anton Cheremukhin, Mikhail Golosov, Sergei Guriev, Aleh Tsyvinski
American Economic Review · 2024 · Volume 114 · Issue 4
Abstract
We quantify the effects of the political development cycle—the fluctuations between the Left (Maoist) and the Right (pragmatist) development policies—on growth and structural transformation of China in 1953–1978. The left policies prioritized structural transformation toward nonagricultural production and consumption at the expense of agricultural development. The right policies prioritized agricultural consumption through slower structural transformation. The imperfect implementation of these policies led to large welfare costs of the political development cycle in a distorted economy undergoing a structural change.
Keywords
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior, Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics, Industrial Structure, Growth, Fluctuations: Asia including Middle East, Economic History: Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation: Asia including Middle East, Economic History: Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment, and Extractive Industries: Asia including Middle East, Planning Models, Planning Policy, Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Planning, Coordination, and Reform, Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: National Income, Product, and Expenditure, Money, Inflation
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