Incentive Effects of Price Rises and Payment-System Changes on Chinese Agricultural Productivity Growth

This paper analyzes the relative importance of the major factors underlying the post-1978 increase in China's agricultural productivity. We present a method for assessing the role of price increases and strengthened individual incentives due to the introduction of the responsibility system. Data on pre- and post-1978 Chinese agricultural performance are used to calculate incentive indices, giving the fraction of their marginal product that peasants received under the pre-1978 regime.