BiblioVault - Books about Chao, Kang

The Development of Cotton Textile Production in China

Kang Chao

Harvard University Press, 1977

This book is the most thorough study yet written on the development of cotton textile production in China. The author has compiled data from a large number of sources in order to explore the origin of cotton textiles in the country and the remarkable expansion of cotton planting and handicraft production after the thirteenth century. He describes institutional and technological progress, the rise of modern mills, the impact on and adjustments of handicraft textiles, and the current situation in China. The book offers important insights into Chinese economic development and the modernization process in general.

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The Economic Development of Manchuria

The Rise of a Frontier Economy

Kang Chao

University of Michigan Press, 1983

The economic development of Manchuria holds special fascination, since within the compass of a limited area and a self-contained time span of about one hundred years—between 1860 and 1960—we witness three different types of development patterns, based on three alternative sources of economic growth. The first and longest period, extending roughly from 1860 to 1930, was based on the development of an open frontier, the settlement of a new region. Application of the staple theory of growth to Manchurian conditions can help to illuminate the character of the growth process during this first period. In this connection the Manchurian development case invites comparison with growth processes in other newly settled regions, for example, the US, Canada, and Australia. [1]

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The Rate and Pattern of Industrial Growth in Communist China

Kang Chao

University of Michigan Press, 1965

The Chinese Communist government places a high priority on the development of industry in its national economic plans. Anxious to show advancement, it has published gross values of industrial production for the years prior to 1961 and corresponding indexes. Many of these data are biased and unreliable. In The Rate and Pattern of Industrial Growth in Communist China, Kang Chao carefully reconstructs two sets of industrial production indexes that are more meaningful and reliable. He also lays out the statistical procedures necessary to construct new indexes that reflect fundamental economic facts in contrast to official statistics. His approach represents an excellent model for others to follow in index-making for countries with limited output statistics and production cost data. The appendix contains valuable tables on China's industrial output, commodity by commodity, as well as on industry employment, wages, and prices. These tables were compiled from diverse and scattered sources and represent the most comprehensive compilation for that sector ever to appear except for the classified statistical documents of the Chinese Communist government.

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