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The purpose of this paper is to explain the puzzle of Chinese Great Leap Famine, which started with a good harvest in the end of 1958 and ended with lowest rural grain consumption per capita in 1961, by focussing on the communal dining system characterized by compulsory collectivization of peasants’ total grain rations, and deprivation of private plots and household sideline production.

The paper uses the panel data of 25 provinces from 1958 to 1962 to make the benchmark estimations by POLS and endogeneity-elimination estimations by 2SLS, employing the great advance in agricultural cooperative movement between 1954 and 1956 and the rural population density as the IVs for the radicalism of communal dining system during the Great Leap Forward. The β coefficients and Gfields decomposition are also presented to assess the relative importance of various factors on famine.

The empirical study finds that the communal dining system does play a critical role on the famine. The evidences of the β coefficients and Gfields decomposition basing on previous estimations also show that communal dining system is the most important cause on the famine.

The lesson from communal dining system on famine provides reference for resolving the current “Three Agrarian Issues” in China. It is important to allow peasants to exit from the compulsive collective system.

The paper discovers the institutional root of the famine by the endogeneity-elimination estimations of IVs and the assessment of relative importance of various factors on famine by β coefficients and Gfields decomposition.

This paper attempts to show that Chinese post‐socialist transformation has involved a deep change in growth regime.

The authors begin by detailing the institutional background of the study: the Chinese post‐socialist transformation. They compare growth regimes both in Maoist and post Maoist eras. Therefore, by using official data, the paper deals with the difficulties and challenges of the current growth regime.

The new growth regime could be particularly difficult to manage regarding China's dependence on external demand in a context of low domestic demand. In particular, the main difficulty to which this growth regime could be confronted with concerns the occurrence of an external contraction in the US. The authors then try to assess why such an event may appear by providing a list of external risks to emphasize the economic vulnerability of China.

This paper is essentially intended for Chinese policy‐makers who wish to adopt a more balanced growth strategy in the long‐run.

The paper develops an alternative view on the macroeconomic situation of China. In particular, it insists on its vulnerability through external demand.

The main purpose of paper is to analyse the political, military and strategic significance of China’s rising power and its influence on Sino-Indian relations, while addressing the question as to why India has not been able to develop a long-term, stable and friendly relationship with China.

The paper is structured as follows: historical overview of India-China relations; various tools of China’s policy in Indian sub-continent; and India’s response. The paper employs a qualitative analysis of secondary literature, with media reports, official documents and public statements providing important sources for understanding the dynamics underlying bilateral relationship.

India needs to be prepared to face challenges as China’s charm offensive in India’s neighbourhood is primarily aimed at establishing a new Asian order in which Beijing would play the leading role. As China institutionalizes its military presence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean, India should adopt an innovative response mechanism, also involving counter-presence in areas considered China’s traditional sphere of influence.

The primary value of the paper lies in the fact that it covers most of the key dimensions of bilateral ties that impair a stable relationship between India and China. A proper understanding of the dynamics underlying bilateral ties may help the policymakers, scholars and academics to suggest ways to reduce sources of tensions, while also helping the Indian Government to prepare effective countermeasures.

Through Chinese experience, the purpose of this paper is to underpin the hypothesis of institutional change as cultural change.

The paper compares Chinese postsocialist transformation to a chemical change reaction. So, the paper discerns initial conditions, factors which triggered the reaction, catalysts, and elements of synthesis. Chinese institutional change per se derived from a cultural shock induced by the economic, political, and cultural opening which acted as trigger. Then, it deals with the other elements of the process.

The paper reveals that Chinese postsocialist transformation is based on change in values and mentalities particularly in the Chinese Communist Party. In this perspective, institutional change is not only an economic or a political process but also it is fundamentally cultural.

This paper shows the process of postsocialist transformation in a different light. Whereas, economists often only focus on political considerations or conflicts of interests, it insists on the cultural dimension of the process.

American radical economists in the 1960s perceived China under Maoism as an important experiment in creating a new society, aspects of which they hoped could serve as a model for the developing world. But the knowledge of “actually existing Maoism” was very limited due to the mutual isolation between China and the US. This chapter analyses the First Friendship Delegation of American Radical Political Economists (FFDARPE) to the People’s Republic of China in 1972, consisting mainly of Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE) members, which was the first visit of a group of American economists to China since 1949. Based on interviews with trip participants as well as archival and published material, this chapter studies what we can learn about the engagement with Maoism by American radical economists from their dialogues with Chinese hosts, from their on-the-ground observations, and their reflection upon return. We show how the visitors’ own ideas conflicted and intersected with their perception of the Maoist practice on gender relations, workers’ management, and life in the communes. We also shed light on the diverging conceptions of the role for economic expertise between URPE and late Maoism. As the first in-depth study on the FFDARPE, we provide rich empirical insights into an ice-breaking event in the larger process of normalization in the Sino-US relations, which ultimately led to the disillusionment of the Left with China.

Single-party regimes increasingly use Subnational Performance Assessments (SPAs) – rankings of provinces and districts – to improve governance outcomes. SPAs assemble and publicize information on local government performance to facilitate monitoring and generate competition among officials. However, the evidence are sparse on their effects in this context. The authors argue that built-in incentive structures in centralized single-party regimes distort the positive impact of SPAs.

The staggered rollout of the Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) created a natural experiment. Due to 2010 budget constraints, the first iteration of the PAPI survey covered only 30 of Vietnam’s 63 provinces before covering all in 2011. The PAPI team used matching procedures to identify a statistical twin for each province before randomly selecting one from each pair. The authors use randomization inference to compare the outcomes of these control and treatment groups in 2011.

Exposure to PAPI helped improve almost all aspects of governance; however, significant evidence of prioritization bias exist. The positive effects only persisted for the dimension of administrative procedures, which was the one area of governance that was prioritized by the central government at the time. Other dimensions only registered short-term effects.

Our study provides an examination of the impact of SPAs in a single-party regime context. In addition, the authors leverage the natural experiment to identify information effects causally. The authors also look past short-term effects to compare outcomes for five years after the treatment occurred.

The position of these Irish agitators is illogical and untenable; the remedy they propose is no remedy at all – nevertheless they are talking about the tenure of land and the right to land; and thus a question of worldwide importance is coming to the front.³