INTERSECTORAL LABOR ALLOCATION ON CHINA COMMUNES - A TEMPORAL-PRIORITY ANALYSIS

Strong private sector competition for labor has widely been held as a major cause of weak incentives for collective work on China's communes. This paper questions this thesis. A close examination of job assignment decision making under the commune reveals two constraints on members' collective sector allocation. Analysis of these shows a wide range of cases where members could be expected to give priority to performing collective operations. Observation of teams from one region supports this result, and confirms the claim made by many Chinese authors that the role of the private sector was complementary. The analysis also provides the basis for a critical examination of the current consensus. © 1991.