From Poverty to Prosperity

This book uses a new political economy theoretical framework (A-C theory) to explain why China has been able to create economic growth miracles in the past few decades and achieve prosperity from poverty in a relatively short period of time. The A-C theory is based on two core concepts: "economic accessibility" and "political cohesion", emphasizing that the combination of cohesive political governance and access to an open economic system is the institutional basis for driving a country’s economy on the road to prosperity—from poverty to wealth. Among them, cohesive political governance is usually political governance that creates a peaceful and stable social order, effectively builds a consensus, and promotes collective action, as opposed to conflictual political governance. An open-access economic system is one that guarantees people the opportunity to participate voluntarily in economic activities, as opposed to a restricted-access economic system. It is the shift from conflict-based political governance to cohesive political governance, from access to a restricted economy to access to an open economy, and the formation of a benign interaction between single-peak unbiased political governance and access to an open economy, which has resulted in more than 40 years of rapid growth. Under this framework, this book examines the development facts of China since the Xinhai Revolution, analyzes typical countries and panel data from 209 countries and regions to further test the historical and international applicability of the theory.