Chapter 1 Rural Households and Generational Evolution.- Chapter 2 Transition in Household Economic Structure and Its Origin.- Chapter 3 Farmland, Farmland Transfer and The Origins.- Chapter 4 Evolution of Saving and Lending Behaviour.- Chapter 5 Imbalanced Economic Development and Its Origin.- Chapter 6 Household Economic Development and Tax & Fee Burdens.- Chapter 7 Changes in Rural Expenditure.- Chapter 8 Rural Employment Structure and Its Change.- Chapter 9 Structural Change of Village Economy and Finance.- Chapter 10 Community Outlook and Spiritual Civilisation.
Dr. Qinghua Shi is a productive researcher and an award-winning professor in agricultural economics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. His research interests are focused on issues concerning agriculture, the rural sector and rural households in China, especially in the field of rural household behavior. Of the over 200 articles he has published, 60% are related to rural household behavior. He has also published 10 monographs on issues concerning rural households. Since 1989, he has carried out over 50 research projects at the national, provincial and ministerial levels, including 10 project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Social Science Foundation of China.
Dr. Shi is also a holder for 41 awards at the national, provincial and ministerial levels, including 16 awards for science and technology progress, 15 awards for excellent research achievements, and 10 awards for best articles.
This book focuses on the transition of hundreds of rural households in ten villages in Zhejiang from 1986 to 2002, based on the theme of rural household sustainable development. Drawing on a large amount of first-hand data collected from fixed observation sites for 17 consecutive years, this book has depicted the changes in household behaviour in rural Zhejiang, and analysed the origins of such changes. The contents of the book contain examinations at household and village level. Chapters One to Seven describe the changes in rural behaviour at the household level from different aspects, such as land transfer, saving and borrowing, and rural tax burden. Chapters Eight to Ten analyse the transition concerning household behaviour based on the village level data. This book will help readers with a better understanding of rural China from the micro perspective of household behaviour.
This book won the Monograph Award (ranked 1st out of 6 winners in total) in the Third China Rural Development Research Award (2008). It was also awarded the
Second Class Excellent Research Achievement in Humanities and Social Sciences by the Ministry of Education (2009). With the help of rich and detailed first-hand data collected from fixed observation sites in ten villages in Zhejiang for 17 consecutive years, this book gives a panoramic analysis of Chinese rural society in transition from the viewpoint of rural household behaviour. It starts the examination from individual rural households, before develops the investigation to the whole villages, so that the study could be carried out in a coherent, reliable and systematic way. Viewing the countryside from its micro perspective under the national political economy framework, the book steps out of the traditional way of inspecting exclusively the rural households and therefore is able to generalise its conclusion at a macro level. The award selection panel in 2008 believed it a unique monography for understanding the macro transition of the Chinese “agriculture, countryside and peasant (三农)” issues from the micro aspect of household behaviour.