China's transition to a market economy has propelled its remarkable economic growth since the late 1970s. In his book, Markets Over Mao: The Rise of Private Business in China, Nicholas R. Lardy, one of the world's foremost experts on the Chinese economy, traces the increasing role of market forces and refutes the widely advanced argument that Chinese economic progress rests on the government's control of the economy's "commanding heights." Markets Over Mao offers powerfully persuasive evidence that the major sources of China's growth in the future will be market-rather than state-driven, with private firms providing the major source of economic growth, the sole source of job creation, and the major contributor to China's still growing role as a global trader.
Dr. Nicholas R. Lardy is the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He joined the Institute in March 2003 from the Brookings Institution, where he was a senior fellow from 1995 until 2003.