http://repub.eur.nl/res/concept/jel-P21/ Recent publications classified by JEL Code P21 en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/150/ 2001-01-21T00:00:00Z It seldom happens that new firms, new industries, and new business systems need to be developed simultaneously. This, however, is the situation in transition economies such as China. Irrespective of product and technology used, incentives and governance structures need to be formulated that give business endeavours an organisational form. The survivability of firms depends further on the ability to start and maintain long-term business relations between contracting parties, while only a broad consensus within the community of entrepreneurs and firms on the procedures that co-ordinate business relations and sanctions transgression promises a decline in transaction costs sufficiently enough to trigger off the quick expansion of markets. Krug, B. Belschak, F.D. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/151/ 2001-01-21T00:00:00Z Recent years have seen the introduction of markets and a system of private property rights in China with a view to changing the composition of production and demand and enhancing welfare. Central to the success of these reforms is the rise of entrepreneurship with its potential to set the economy on a higher growth path by supplying the products which consumers need and want, creating new employment opportunities, and introducing new and more efficient technologies of production. But to what extent can we expect to see entrepreneurs in China behaving like their counterparts in the advanced industrial economies of Western Europe, Japan, and the United States? This is the question we address in this chapter. In our view, the reform programme has, indeed, opened up new opportunities for private enterprise activity; but idiosyncrasies of the business environment are at the same time generating novel institutional arrangements in support of entrepreneurs' investments. We agree, therefore, with Herrick and Kindleberger when they assert that "Development ought not to be viewed as a monotonic, stylized path, ever onward and upward, historically established and invariably repeated" (1983, p.62). Krug, B. Mehta, J. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/143/ 2001-01-09T00:00:00Z Die ?konomie ist so kultur- wie geschichtslos. Das ist ihre St?rke, vermag sie doch deshalb Gemeinsamkeiten auch dort zu entdecken, wo Historiker, Anthropologen, und nicht zuletzt die Bewohner eines Landes, Einzigartigkeit beanspruchen. Es ist auch ihre Schw?che, weil nur das sein kann, was gem?ss des analytischen Instrumentariums, sein darf. Eine positive wirtschaftliche Entwicklung muss durch funktionierende M?rkte hervorgerufen worden sein. Eine Zunahme der Faktorproduktivit?t deutet auf das Funktionieren des Preismechanismus hin, wenn nicht gar Korruption als Pareto-superiore L?sung und subversiver Weg mit administrativen Vorschriften umzugehen, gewertet wird. China gibt deshalb konzeptuelle wie empirische Probleme auf. Das sind auf der einen Seite die hohen Wachstumsraten der Wirtschaft, die durch einen verbesserten Ressourceneinsatz, aber auch die Mobilisierung zus?tzlicher Ressourcen hervorgerufen wurde. Da ist aber auch die Transformation eines Wirtschaftssystems weg von einer Planwirtschaft hin zu einer arbeitsteiligen Konkurrenzwirtschaft, die im Vergleich zu den ehemals sozialistischen Staaten in Mittel- und Osteuropa von geringerer Arbeitslosigkeit, geringeren Inflationsraten und hohen Exporterfolgen begleitet wurde. Das herk?mmliche Instrumentarium der ?konomie kann hier nur wenig befriedigende Erkl?rungen bieten. Deshalb scheint die Literatur, die in der Kultur die Ursache f?r den chinesischen Wirtschaftserfolg sieht, vielversprechender zu sein. Diese Interpretation kann zus?tzlich als Beleg anf?hren, dass mit Korea, Taiwan, Hongkong und Singapur weitere chinesische Staaten mit ebenso beeindruckenden Wirtschaftsleistungen aufwarten k?nnen. Krug, B. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/283/ 2000-12-01T00:00:00Z The paper describes the emergence of entrepreneurship in Shanxi province based on fieldwork in the last 6 years. Employing institutional and evolutionary economics shows that both the kind of firms that emerge and the individual behaviour of entrepreneurs reflect a systematic response to the situational constraint all would-be entrepreneurs face, namely a high level of uncertainty and weak institutions. In this situation to establish firms with a weak organisational identity allows to flexibly respond to new opportunities, while a strong reputation for accountability of the owners and managers is needed to get long term business relations started. As the Shanxi sample shows accountability can be achieved by a mix of reviving old economic institutions, hijacking social organisations, and building new business practices. To the extent that old institutions, social organisations and business practices do not spread equally across China, different forms of firms and different forms of entrepreneurship can be expected within China. In short, local cultures matter. Krug, B. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/59/ 2000-12-01T00:00:00Z The Chinese economy has developed rapidly despite two major constraints: ill-functioning markets and a socialist past, both of which caused an environment of unenforceable contracts. In this situation the need to pool resources and to govern relational risk was paramount to the development of a private sector. While modern organisation (transaction cost-) theory can explain why and to which extent entrepreneurship in China is based on collective agents, an analysis of the (local) political market is needed to explain why China's villages provide the much needed (and valuable) public goods in form of property rights protection and contractual security. Decentralisation and jurisdictional competition facilitate the writing of a new "common law" as well as the "discovery" of new forms of collective action. Krug, B.