The following assignment is an example of the study questions that correspond to each lecture.
- What are the "ex country" lessons of China's agricultural reforms? In other words, are there any generalizable lessons that can be applied to other countries? Is the lesson that clear property rights are overrated as driver of growth? Alternatively, is the point that liberalization - lifting the chains of inefficient govt intervention - the clearest path to growth in developing countries? Why were China's agricultural reforms effective, and to what extent really were they effective?
- What was the policy "style" that allowed agricultural reform to proceed? Is there anything to the idea that China developed a particular form of experimentalism and incrementalism. Was this pragmatism or just "muddling through."
- What is the most important reason behind the development of TVEs? Again, what are the "ex country" lessons to be drawn from this? Is the point that state intervention necessary and useful, a la local state corporatism? Or, is the point that surplus labor is essential, and that TVE growth signifies a normal process of industrialization that would have happened regardless of China's particular policy interventions.
- Do TVEs really represent an alternative property rights form? How sustainable is this form? What accounts for the transformation of TVEs and the growth of the private sector in the 1990s?