Capitalism From Below: Markets and Institutional Change in China

Prof. Opper will present the findings and arguments detailed in her new book of the same title, co-authored with Prof. Victor Nee and published by Harvard University Press in June 2012. More than 630 million Chinese have escaped poverty since the 1980s, reducing the fraction remaining from 82 to 10 percent of the population. This astonishing decline in poverty, the largest in history, coincided with the rapid growth of a private enterprise economy. Studying over 700 manufacturing firms in the Yangzi region, authors Victor Nee and Sonja Opper argue that China's private enterprise economy bubbled up from below. Today, this private enterprise economy is one of the greatest success stories in the history of capitalism. For more information, visit http://www.capitalism-from-below.com.
 
About the author: Sonja Opper is the Gad Rausing Professor of International Economics and Business at Lund University. She is also a Fellow at the Center of Economy and Society, Cornell University.

This research seminar is organised by the China Business centre at Erasmus University.