The role of township-owned enterprises in the rapid growth of the Chinese economy during reform is widely acknowledged. Beginning in the mid-1990s, however, these firms began to be privatized. Perhaps the most striking feature of this process is that it has not occurred uniformly across...

This paper describes the process of privatization of China's Township Enterprises. Findings from a recent field survey by the authors show how far privatization has proceeded and how it has affected firm performance. The pervasiveness and impact of privatization are readily apparent. The...

This paper studies insider privatization in rural China and provides an explanation of why some firms have performed well after privatization but others have not. We show theoretically that the underperformance of insider-privatized firms could be due to the manager-cum-owner's lack of...