Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

"Combining remarkable economic transition and dynamic growth, China may well have the most fascinating economy in the world. Over the period of economic reform China has moved from an administered labour system towards the creation of a labour market. The scale of this transformation, involving new economic incentives, vast labour migration, draconian retrenchment of state workers, and sharply rising wage inequality, is unprecedented in world history." "The authors draw on more than a decade of their research to document and analyse this process. The book uses the rigorous analysis and empirical methodology of modern economics. Much of the evidence is survey-based but a systemic approach is adopted: economic and sociological theory, institutional analysis and political economy are also used to explain the causes, pressures, obstacles and consequences of the move towards a labour market." "Because the subject is of such importance and general interest, the book is written for development economists, labour economists, transition economists, policy-makers, and those in development studies and comparative sociology as well as for China specialists."--Jacket.

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