The Chinese agriculture miracle revisited

A large body of work has tried to attribute the remarkable growth of Chinese agriculture between 1979 and 1984 to the dismantling of collectives. This paper critically reviews the evidence and finds that decollectivisation did not contribute to agricultural growth in the early 1980s. In particular, its response to Lin (1992) challenges the consensus and argues that decollectivisation was largely irrelevant to the exceptional growth in this period. It is held that a more intensive application of modern inputs and favourable weather conditions accounted for most of the spurt in growth.