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This paper analyzes the political and institutional factors which are behind the dramatic changes in distortions to agricultural incentives in the transition countries in East Asia, Central Asia, and the rest of the former Soviet Union, and in Central and Eastern Europe. The paper explains why these changes have occurred and why there are large differences among transition countries in the extent and the nature of the remaining distortions.

This article examines the privatization of China's township enterprises. According to our survey of 670 firms in 15 randomly selected counties in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, more than half of the firms owned by local government were completely privatized by 1999. The privatization process is striking for two reasons. First, local governments almost always sold firms to insiders, while in the rest of the world privatization largely involves outsiders. Secondly, unlike the predictions of some academics and policy makers, many privatized firms have experienced an increase in performance. Drawing on firm-level survey data and extensive interviews with government leaders and managers, we found that leaders devised a way to elicit information from the buyer at the time of the sale about the firm's future profitability that enabled them to execute privatization successfully. Our analysis shows that the performance of firms with new owners that paid a price for the firm that exceeded the book value of its assets is on par with the performance of private firms after privatization since they also received strong incentives.

Abstract.  The main goal of the paper is to address the policy changes that accompany China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and evaluate the various impacts of the agreement. To do so, we review the contours of past policies and describe the nature of the promises it has made to the WTO. We show that China's WTO commitments are very much an extension of past policies. Second, we show that most impacts will be relatively minor and in most cases the positive effects will outweigh the negative ones. Various institutions will buffer producers from suffering too much.

This paper analyzes the effect of China's trade liberalization
process on the nation's rural economy. Although some leaders fear there
will be substantial negative effects on China's rural sector and food
security, a closer examination shows that the World Trade Organization
(WTO) accession is part of a longer-term, efficiency-enhancing process
of liberalization and opening to the outside world. When analyzed from
this angle, the impacts of WTO reform, while not trivial, reflect trends
already evident, many of which are positive. For example, while WTO
accession may accelerate price decreases for certain crops, such as wheat
and corn, prices should rise and export opportunities should increase
for commodities such as meats, fruit, and fish. Rural wages in most
sectors that employ rural workers should also rise. Finally, this paper
describes a number of different ways that China and its rural residents
will be able to protect themselves after trade rules are liberalized.

This paper analyzes the effect of the People's Republic of China's trade liberalization process on the nation's rural economy. Although some leaders fear there will be substantial negative effects on China's rural sector & food security, a closer examination shows that the World Trade Organization (WTO) accession is part of a longer-term, efficiency-enhancing process of liberalization & opening to the outside world. When analyzed from this angle, the impacts of WTO reform while not trivial, reflect trends already evident many of which are positive. For example, while WTO accession may accelerate price decreases for certain crops, such as wheat & corn, prices should rise & export opportunities should increase for commodities such as meats, fruit, & fish. Rural wages in most sectors that employ rural workers should also rise. Finally, this paper describes a number of different ways that China & its rural residents will be able to protect themselves after trade rules are liberalized. 2 Tables. Adapted from the source document.