{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.023514851485148515, 'fraction_numerical': 0.009075907590759076, 'mean_word_length': 4.815347721822542, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The Microeconomics of Peasant Economy: China, 1920–40 . By Thomas B. Wiens. [New York: Garland Publishing, 1982. 512 pp. $55.00.]

A common feature shared by many developing countries is a maldistribution of factor ownership. In the predominant rural sector the ownership of land is often highly concentrated with half or more owned by a small minority of the population. Pre-1949 China was typical in this regard. Data compiled by the Land Commission suggest that half of the land was owned by only 8 per cent of the population. Recently, however, it has been shown by Charles Roll that farm households in China were able to partially overcome the constraints imposed by limited resource endowment through factor markets that existed in land and labour, and through subsidiary industry. In the final analysis, inequality in the distribution of land was not a good predictor of income inequality. In this book, an unrevised version of his Ph.D dissertation, Thomas Wiens provides a detailed and rigorous analysis of these factor markets and the Chinese peasant economy in general. In Chapter II, Wiens sets out a theoretical model of the distribution of income in overpopulated agrarian economies that is contrasted with alternative " laboursurplus " models. The term distribution of income is actually a misnomer here as Wiens is not concerned with the relative shares of labour, land and capital, but with the determination of factor payments, i.e. wages, rent and interest in the economy. The model takes as its point of departure the marginal productivity theory of the distribution of income. According to this theory, factor payments are a function of factor productivity and in equilibrium are equal to the marginal product of each factor. In addition, it shares the neo-classical economy view that individuals maximize income or utility (a function of income), and are not motivated by ethical or social codes that may actually conflict with their interests as individuals. But, unlike other models, it takes into account the effect that differences in resource endowment and behaviour towards risk under uncertainty have on household behaviour and resource allocation. Most of the discussion is highly technical in nature and not easily read by the non-economist. Nonetheless, at the end of the chapter Wiens lists seven testable implications of the model that provide a focus of attention for the rest of the book.