Changing Lanes in China: Foreign Direct Investment, Local Governments, and Auto Sector Development

by Eric Thun

• ISBN13: 9780521843829
• ISBN10: 0521843820
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-01-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book addresses two of the most important trends in political economy during the last two decades--globalization and decentralization--in the context of the world's most rapidly growing economic power. The development of the Chinese auto industry is a classic example of Chinaas efforts to re-make inefficient and technologically backward Chinese firms into powerful national champions, and it is an industry on which many of the worldas most powerful multinationals have staked their future. The intent of the book is to provide a better understanding of how local political and economic institutions shape the ability if Chinese state-owned firms to effectively utilize foreign direct investment (FDI), and how these institutions shape the prospects of foreign investment. In a global economy, the author argues, local governments are increasingly the agents of industrial transformation at the level of the firm. Local institutions are durable over time, and they have important economic consequences. Through an analysis of five Chinese regions, the book seeks to specify the opportunities and constraints that alternative institutional structures create, how they change over time, and ultimately, how they prepare Chinese firms for the challenge of global competition.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables	ix
List of Abbreviations	xi
Preface	xiii
PART I. INTRODUCTION
1. Local Governments, FDI, and Industrial Development	3	(45)
2. The View from the Center	48	(35)
PART II. DEVELOPMENT IN A PROTECTED MARKET
3. Coordinating Development in the Auto Sector	83	(17)
4. Shanghai: A Local Developmental State	100	(36)
5. Beijing and Guangzhou: Laissez-Faire Local States	136	(36)
6. Changchun and Wuhan: Firm-Dominated Localities	172	(35)
PART III. DEEPENING GLOBAL INTEGRATION
7. Global Integration and the Challenge of Upgrading	207	(41)
8. Growth, Change, and the Challenge of Governance	248	(25)
PART IV. CONCLUSION
9. Local Institutions in a Global Economy	273	(20)
Appendix on Research Methods	293	(2)
Bibliography	295	(18)
Index	313