The Butterfly Effect in China’s Economic Growth

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvii

   PDF

2. Mao Zedong and the Preconditions for the Butterfly Effect

   • Wei-Bin Zhang

   Pages 1-27

3. Deng Xiaoping Triggered off the Butterfly Effect

   • Wei-Bin Zhang

   Pages 29-56

4. Confucius as Cultural Capital in Sustaining the Butterfly Effect

   • Wei-Bin Zhang

   Pages 57-96

5. Spread Education and Devouring Global Knowledge

   • Wei-Bin Zhang

   Pages 97-117

6. Economic Growth from Hunger with Animal Spirits

   • Wei-Bin Zhang

   Pages 119-158

7. Uncertain China with Docilely Educated Population

   • Wei-Bin Zhang

   Pages 159-191

8. Back Matter

   Pages 193-213

   PDF

This book examines the butterfly effect in China's modern economic development during the period of 1978–2018. In chaos theory, the butterfly effect refers to a phenomenon that a butterfly flaps its wings in Okinawa, and subsequently a storm may ravage New York. Deng applied a trivial idea, called the market mechanism, to China’s countryside in 1978. The idea has subsequently caused economic structural changes and fast growth in the economy with the largest population in human history. China’s per capita GDP jumped from $100 in 1978 to over US$8,000 in 2018. Eight hundred million people have made a great escape from poverty. By 2018, China was the world’s second-largest economy from its 10th position in 1978 with its 9 per cent average annual growth rate of GDP in the previous four decades. This illuminating book will be of value to economists, scholars of China, and historians.

• Butterfly Effect
• Market Mechanism
• China
• Productivity
• Efficiency

• Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu-Shi, Japan

  Wei-Bin Zhang

Wei-Bin Zhang, Ph.D. (Umeå, Sweden), is Professor of Economics in Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), Japan. His main research fields are nonlinear economic dynamics, growth theory, trade theory, East Asian economic development, and Confucianism. He has single-authorized about 360 academic articles (240 in peer-review international journals) and authorized 23 academic books in English by international publishing houses. Prof. Zhang is one of the editorial board members of 15 international journals.

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