The Treaty Port Economy in Modern China: Empirical Studies of Institutional Change and Economic Performance

Editors: Billy K.L. SO and Ramon H. MYERS

Year of Publication: 2011

Publisher: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California - Berkeley

Through eight empirical studies, this volume explores the interplay between institutional change and economic performance in a constructed model of the treaty port economy in late-Qing and Republican China.
“Where previous generations of researchers sought to account for China’s failures, we now face the novel problem of explaining massive success. This volume offers a timely reappraisal of circumstances in China’s treaty ports, one of many legacies underpinning today’s economic boom. The emphasis on institutions, a topic that recent studies tend to sidestep, adds to the value of the lively empirical studies in this new book.”
–Thomas G. Rawski, University of Pittsburgh

“These studies of institutional changes in China’s treaty port economies introduce the challenges and potential payoffs of understanding how institutions aff ect economic performance. With rich and diverse empirical material, they provide perspective on more recent Chinese economic reforms and the ways in which economic growth need neither intend nor result in prosperity for all.”
–R. Bin Wong, University of California, Los Angeles