Farm Household Behavior, Factor Markets, and the Distributive Consequences of Commercialization in Early Twentieth-Century China

Abstract

Unlike the case of many low-income countries, farm-level survey data show no major differences across farm sizes with regard to decision-making and economic efficiency. This similarity is attributed to the operation of efficient and competitive markets which households used effectively to offset imbalances in resource endowment. If this holds true from the 1880s to the 1930s, perhaps the benefits of commercialization were more evenly distributed than previously believed.