Markets over Mao

China's transition to a market economy has propelled its remarkable economic growth since the late 1970s. In this book, 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.' In another challenge to conventional wisdom, Lardy finds little evidence that the decade of the leadership of former President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao (2003-13) dramatically increased the role and…