TY  - JOUR
AU  - Keller,Wolfgang
AU  - Shiue,Carol H.
TI  - Market Integration and Economic Development: A Long-run Comparison
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10300
PY  - 2004
Y2  - February 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10300
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10300.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Wolfgang Keller
Department of Economics
University of Colorado-Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309-0256
Tel: 303/735 5507
Fax: 303/492 8960
E-Mail: Wolfgang.Keller@colorado.edu

Carol H. Shiue
Department of Economics
University of Colorado-Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309-0256
E-Mail: carol.shiue@colorado.edu
AB  - How much of China's recent economic performance can be attributed to market-oriented reforms introduced in the last two decades? A long-run perspective may be important for understanding the process of economic development occurring today. This paper compares the integration of rice markets in China today and 270 years ago. In the 18th century, transport technology was non-mechanized, but markets were close to being free markets.  We distinguish local harvest and weather from aggregate sources of price variation in a historical sample and in a similarly constructed contemporary sample. Findings indicate the degree of market integration in the 1720s is a very good predictor of per capita income in the 1990s. Moreover, the current pattern of interregional income in China is strongly linked to persistent geographic factors that were already apparent several centuries ago, well before the enactment of modern reform programs.
ER  -