The extent and timing of economic reforms differed markedly across China's provinces between 1978 and 1994. The national government pushed reforms hard in some provinces, hardly at all in others; and provincial governments varied considerably in their eagerness to embrace reforms. What explain these variations? Politics emerges, at both levels, as far more important than economic efficiency. The need to gamer support from urban and rural consumers, I argue, drove national reform policies, and interest group strength (i.e., the size and clout of state versus non-state sectors) shaped provincial policies. This conclusion on the dualism of China's reform politics is reached by running time-series and cross sectional regression tests on indicators of efficiency, revenue, political-support, and interest-group strength.;The national government, I suggest, was responsible for the performance of the regime. It adopted reforms primarily to regain the popular support eroded by Mao's traumatic politics and secondarily to generate economic growth. The provincial leaders were appointed by the national leaders and thus had no need to worry about popular support. Instead, industrial sectors that were well represented by the provincial governmental agencies could influence the provinces' reform policies. Politics and institutions shaped Chinese economic reforms.;Empirical studies of national and provincial reform policies between 1978 and 1998 buttress the above statistical findings. An empirical examination of the cycles of national reform and retraction indicates that reformist and conservative national leaders competed for meeting popular demands for growth versus low inflation, setting off boom and bust in reforms. A comparison of the reforms in two provinces reveals that the clout of non-state relative to the state sectors, economic structure, governmental efficiency, ideology, and geography led the provincial authority down the divergent reform paths. In addition, empirical studies highlight the role of institutional setup in shaping national and provincial policies.;Data analyses indicate that citizens in the ex-communist economies rate the performance of the governments in terms of economic performance. In this sense, by delivering the population economic windfalls through reforms, the Chinese Communists have legitimized their monopoly of power. The dissertation also reviews the reforms for China since 1994 as well as the challenges ahead.
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