中国市场转型的环境.pdfVIP

Lecture 2 The Transition of China’s Market Environment 中国市场转型环境 Central planning (Command economy) • Planning at several levels • Walder: investment capital given as a grant, • Administered prices that did not reflect relative scarcities • Insulated from foreign competition and world prices, • Lack of competition on product markets • Poor distribution networks • Lying about output, low productivity, product scarcity, etc.. 1 How about consumers and marketing? • Shortage and limited variety of goods. • Shoddy products with poor quality • Rationing system • Through state-controlled channels of distribution • For everything you needs • Marketing – what is that? It did not exist! The Follies of Central Planning-- Chinese Heating System • March 14, 2006 WSJ has an article (Chinas Winter of Discontent, p. B1; sorry no link) that demonstrates the folly of using central planning to produce and allocate goods and services. An excerpt: – Heating systems are one of the last areas that remain under Chinas former centrally planned economy, with government regulators still setting the thermostat for homes, classrooms and offices across the country. Under the policy, which dates back to Mao Zedong in the 1950s, the government provides heat in the northern half of China, and, to save money, it provides no heat in the southern half. As a result, northerners often wilt in steaming apartments, while those in southern provinces shiver through the winter. – /archives/002391.php • The Collapse of Soviet Union: winter in Russia 2 The Greatest Transition