Description
Book SynopsisThis book explores the development of the putting-out system in hand-woven textile industries in late Qing Dynasty and China's Republican Period. In classic sociology theory, the putting-out system in handcraft production was regarded as traditional and inefficient. In the context of Republican China, it was believed that this kind of household-based production system would have totally failed in competition with the factory system of machinery production. However, this book exhibits the historical fact that the putting-out system was booming in handcraft textile production and subsequently provides an explanation to this phenomenon from the perspectives of institutional analysis and quantitative modeling. With rich county-level data and comprehensive analysis, this book is valuable for both researchers, academics and students in economics and social history studies.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Smithian Growth or Involution Growth?; Handicraft Industry and Institutional Change: Literature Review; Proto-industrialization in Industrial Era: A historical study about cotton textile industry in North China; "Involution" and "Industrialization" - Investigation of Cotton Textile Industry in the South of Yangtze River; Analysis on the Institutional Change and the Number of Rural Industrialization; Putting-out System and the Prosperity of Rural Homespun Industry; Conclusion: Commercialization, Institutional Change and Rural Industrialization.
