Varieties of marketization in China: The impact of private entrepreneurs, local governments, and state-owned enterprises

China has successfully marketized its economy since the late 1970s. The Chinese type of market economy in general is called as a market economy with Chinese characteristics that features of both market-based economy and planned economy coexist. However, it is hard to define features of a market economy with Chinese characteristics as a single term if varieties of features of local market economies within China are closely looked into. Instead, each locality has developed a local market economy that tends to be different from each other and thereby shows different performance in areas of economic growth and local governance. What factors account for the differences?;This study pays close attention to roles and effects of local government and private entrepreneurial class focusing on three localities in China in the course of marketization, based on the assumption that, at the local level in post-Maoist China, transitional paths toward a market-based economy from the planned economy are significantly affected by leading actors such as local governments, private entrepreneurs, or state-owned enterprises; economic development and formation of vibrant local market economy tend to be strongest when led by private entrepreneurs and weakest when led by state-owned enterprises. It especially focuses on formation of private entrepreneurial class and its roles in constructing a local market society. It poses that Wenzhou, among three localities for this research, where private entrepreneurial class was the driving force for local marketization tends to build a vibrant local market society in terms of economic growth and local governance in favor of market economy; Sunan where the local government played a leading role in the local market reform is likely to achieve economic growth, but simultaneously to constrain development of private entrepreneurial class, and eventually to restrain formation of a local market economy based on non-state private economic sector; Anshan where state-owned enterprises sector dominates the local economy substantially contraines both growth of private entrepreneurial class and a local market economy.;By comparing three different pathways toward market economy (private entrepreneur-led, local government-led, and state economic sector-dominated path) and focusing on roles of local governments and private entrepreneurs for the local marketization, the work first elaborates on how the three different localities have formed different market economies under the same macro-institutional framework of the Communist Party of China (CPC)-led economic transformation. It examines, in the initial time of China's reform, how endowed socio-economic resources have led three different localities to take different paths. Secondly, it examines roles and effects of different major actors for marketization with a research question that: who was the driving force for marketization at the locality, the local government, or private entrepreneur, or state economic sector? Thirdly, it demonstrates that private entrepreneurs are the champion of marketization. Lastly, this dissertation highlights that private entrepreneurial class as a significant social force also affects development of local governance in favor of a local market economy, which makes a local market work well.