Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2015
  • Book

Land Bargains and Chinese Capitalism: The Politics of Property Rights under Reform

By: Meg Rithmire
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Land reforms have been critical to the development of Chinese capitalism over the last several decades, yet land in China remains publicly owned. This book explores the political logic of reforms to land ownership and control, accounting for how land development and real estate have become synonymous with economic growth and prosperity in China. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and archival research, this book tracks land reforms and urban development at the national level and in three cities in a single Chinese region. The study reveals that the initial liberalization of land was reversed after China's first contemporary real estate bubble in the early 1990s and that property rights arrangements at the local level varied widely according to different local strategies for economic prosperity and political stability. In particular, the author links fiscal relations and economic bases to property rights regimes, finding that more "open" cities are subject to greater state control over land.

Keywords

Property; China

Citation

Rithmire, Meg. Land Bargains and Chinese Capitalism: The Politics of Property Rights under Reform. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Purchase

About The Author

Meg Rithmire

Business, Government and the International Economy
→More Publications

More from the Author

    • April 2022
    • Comparative Politics

    Going Out or Opting Out? Capital, Political Vulnerability, and the State in China's Outward Investment

    By: Meg Rithmire
    • December 2021
    • Faculty Research

    Lattice Semiconductor and the Future of Chinese High-Tech Acquisitions in the United States

    By: Meg Rithmire
    • China Quarterly

    The Emergence of Mafia-like Business Systems in China

    By: Meg Rithmire and Hao Chen
More from the Author
  • Going Out or Opting Out? Capital, Political Vulnerability, and the State in China's Outward Investment By: Meg Rithmire
  • Lattice Semiconductor and the Future of Chinese High-Tech Acquisitions in the United States By: Meg Rithmire
  • The Emergence of Mafia-like Business Systems in China By: Meg Rithmire and Hao Chen
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College