The Role of the State in Making a National Market: The Evolution of the Grain Market in China (1978-2000)

The paper aims to examine Karl Polanyi's view of market evolution in the context of the emergence of a national grain market in China's transition economy. The dataset used includes information about inter-provincial grain trade on China's grain market from November 1999 to October 2000. A priori blockmodelling method is used for hypothesis testing. This paper finds that a partially integrated national grain market had emerged at the beginning of the twenty-first century in China in spite of local protectionism. Additionally, the emergence of this market is found to be partly a result of the reform-oriented state's attempt to create national wholesale grain markets.