Joint-u brown bag conference – “Conference on Institutions, Institutional Analysis, and China’s Economic Transformation”

China’s economic transformation presented a striking dilemma for new institutional economics. On the one hand, the extraordinary growth record China had achieved ever since the start of economic reform and opening-up in the late 1970s had provided strongest possible testimony to institutions as a fundamental cause of economic growth and economic change. On the other hand, the economic rose of China had been accompanied by notoriously weak institutions, from property rights protection to contract enforcement, from the financial system to the rule of law. At this mini-conference, scholars from North America, Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong presented original research papers to explore the institutional foundations of China’s market transformation. Papers were divided into four groups, namely the political economy of China’s market transformation, the slowing down economy, the industrial structure of production, and the institutions of land and urbanization.