Social Capabilities and Chinese Economic Growth

During the last four decades of the twentieth century, China’s economy produced a truly remarkable sequence of events. The Great Leap Forward of 1958–1960 initiated a twenty-year interlude of widespread hunger and deprivation. Twenty years later, the reform policies of the late 1970s triggered a massive and unexpected economic boom that catapulted several hundred million people from absolute poverty. This experience raises profound questions about the links between culture, institutions, and economy, a central focus of C. K. Yang’s distinguished research career. Recent studies document the scale and impact of China’s 1959–1961 famine. The persistence of hunger and