In the 1950s and 1960s, the Chinese government exerted unprecedented efforts and marshaled enormous economic resources for the purpose of capital formation. It was difficult for the rest of the world to determine precisely how successful these efforts were because of the incompleteness of official investment statistics. In Capital Formation in Mainland China, Kang Chao provides a comprehensive measurement of fixed capital investment in China. His basic approach is that of the commodity flow method, which takes into account each investment component and each capital goods item installed in China since 1949. He has complied extensive information both from diverse Chinese publications and from sources in countries that have exported capital goods to China. On the basis of this empirical foundation he analyzes all facets of the investment drive as well as the relationship between capital accumulation and the major aspects of Chinese economic development, revealing many details previously unknown to the West.

In the process of arriving at his aggregate estimates, Chao has sorted, checked, and tabulated detailed data relating to individual components that will constitute an important aid to scholars involved in research on related subjects.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.