How China Escaped the Poverty Trap

WINNER OF THE 2017 PETER KATZENSTEIN BOOK PRIZE 'BEST OF BOOKS IN 2017' BY FOREIGN AFFAIRS WINNER OF THE 2018 VIVIAN ZELIZER PRIZE BEST BOOK AWARD IN ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY 'How China Escaped the Poverty Trap truly offers game-changing ideas for the analysis and implementation of socio-economic development and should have a major impact across many social sciences.' - Zelizer Best Book in Economic Sociology Prize Committee Acclaimed as 'game changing' and 'field shifting,' How China Escaped the Poverty Trap advances a new paradigm in the political economy of development and sheds new light on China's rise. How can poor and weak societies escape poverty traps? Political economists have traditionally offered three answers: 'stimulate growth first,' 'build good institutions first,' or 'some fortunate nations inherited good institutions that led to growth.' Yuen Yuen Ang rejects all three schools of thought and their underlying assumptions: linear causation, a mechanistic worldview, and