Bureaucrats in Business, Chinese-Style: The Lessons of Market Reform and State Entrepreneurialism in the People's Republic of China
Article Abstract:
In the 1990s, parts of the state bureaucracy in China have been setting up new profit-seeking, risk-taking businesses. Some of these businesses are entrepreneurial rather than rent-seeking, and are an unplanned and unanticipated development in China's market-oriented economic reforms. What are the lessons of this phenomenon for the developing world? State entrepreneurialism may create problems such as reduced government control over departmental finance, loss of state assets, and uneven provision of services. It is nevertheless an innovative solution to the politically difficult problem of bureaucratic restructuring, and confounds the development orthodoxy, fostered by neoliberalism, that states will resist market reform. It also demonstrates that to understand fully the politics of market reform we must research the activities of subcentral state bureaucrats as well as central leaders and policymakers. [C] 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words -- Asia, China, state, markets, entrepreneurship, neoliberalism
Publication Name: World Development
Subject: International relations
ISSN: 0305-750X
Year: 2001
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Microfinance with Chinese Characteristics
Article Abstract:
Analyzing household survey data from three microfinance program sites, we provide an early systematic assessment of Chinese microfinance programs, which have grown rapidly since 1994, are based on the Grameen model, and include an unprecedented large-scale government initiative. We examine the empirical propositions that underpin successful microfinance programs--reaching the poor (targeting), financial and operational performance (sustainability), and program benefits (impact). We find that nongovernmental programs perform well in all three areas, but that governmental programs perform poorly. Given the remote location and focus on agricultural projects in China's poor areas, we advocate greater flexibility in loan contract terms, especially repayment schedules. [C] 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words -- microfinance, credit, poverty alleviation, Asia, China
Publication Name: World Development
Subject: International relations
ISSN: 0305-750X
Year: 2001
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Conflicts Over Credit: Re-Evaluating the Empowerment Potential of Loans to Women in Rural Bangladesh
Article Abstract:
This paper explores the reasons why recent evaluations of the empowerment potential of credit programs for rural women in Bangladesh have arrived at very conflicting conclusions. Although these evaluations use somewhat different methodologies and have been carried out at different points of time, the paper argues that the primary source of the conflict lies in the very different understandings of intrahousehold power relations which these studies draw on. It supports this argument through a comparative analysis with the findings of a participatory evaluation of a rather different credit program in Bangladesh in which the impact of loans was evaluated by women loanees themselves. [C] 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Key words -- microcredit, gender, empowerment, evaluation, Bangladesh, Asia
Publication Name: World Development
Subject: International relations
ISSN: 0305-750X
Year: 2001
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