５３【特集・Extended Abstract】

Intersectoral Resource Flows in China Revisited---In Memory of the Late Professor Shigeru Ishikawa
Katsuji Nakagane［キーワード］Shigeru Ishikawa, intersectoral resource flows, China, economic development［JEL 分類番号］O13, O41, O53, P22

Professor Shigeru Ishikawa, who passed

ture must provide industrialization fund at theaway in January 2014, can be said to be a great

initial stage of development. Historical experi-pioneer in the area of Chinese studies as wellences are supposed to support this wisdom, asas development thinking in Japan. His contribu-for example in the case of Japan after the Meiji

tions to this area are various, but what isrestoration. According to Preobrazhensky s

particularly influential in the international

theory of socialist industrialization, the rural

academic circle of development studies is his(agricultural) sector as a domestic colony isstudies on intersectoral resource flows inassumed to be obliged to provide the primitive

developing countries including China. His work

accumulation fundon this issue has been followed by many

He insisted at the same time that agriculture s

authors who try to estimate intersectoral

resource should be transferred indirectly toresource flows in other economies, including

the state through skewed price mechanisms

pre‑war Japan. They were all motivated by(scissors prices).

Ishikawa s bright idea and creative framework
to deal with this issue.

to the industrial sector.

Ishikawa stresses, on the other hand, that
agriculture must be aided by non‑agricultural

An issue of intersectoral resource flows

sector in contemporary developing countries(hereafter, ISRF) is originated from a seminal

in order not to fall into the Ricardian trap１. He

paper by Lewis (1954), then developed by Fei

says that agriculture in today s developingand Ranis (1964), who formulated capital flows

countries needs more infrastructural invest-

between agriculture and industry in develop-

ment by the state to escape from the trap

ment process. Ishikawa extended their methodology to apply to four economies andestimated the real capital flows between these
two sectors, to propose a new hypothesis
regarding the agriculture s roles of industrialization fund provision within developing countries (Ishikawa s hypothesis).
Conventional wisdom indicates that agricul-

This hypothesis has attracted a wide───────────
１ Ricardian trap means the following linkage
describing a vicious circle, i.e. underdeveloped
agriculture →poor production of grains →risinggrain price →industrial wage increase →industrial profit decrease →investment rate
decline →declining growth → underdeveloped
agriculture.

５４

中国経済研究international interest by development econo-

第１２巻第１号

Preobrazhensky s theory of scissors prices

mists. For example, Lee (1971) applied Ishika-

could be described as pi*<pi, and pa*>pa.

wa s hypothesis and his methodology toCertainly, procurement prices of agricultural

Taiwan s historical experiences, while Mundle

products were highly underpriced, while prices(1981) reestimated agro‑industrial capital flows

of industrial products for the agricultural sector

in India and Ohkawa et al.(1978) as well as

were intentionally overpriced in Maoist China.

Teranishi (1982) focused on the ISRF in pre‑But what are the appropriate prices p*,

war Japan.

then? Are they market prices? If so, there areReal ISRF between agricultural and indust-no sufficient data of market prices during therial sectors or agricultural surplus can be

Maoist era, when any markets were squeezed

described as follows.

and often shut down. Are they prices reflecting

Real ISRF: S=Xa/pa‑Xi/pi=(Xa‑Xi)/pa

labor values inherent in the products? (e.g.

+(1/pa‑1/pi)Xi=(Xa‑Xi)/pa +(1‑Pa/pi)Xi/paLi 1985) But such prices can be derived on thewhere Xa is agricultural exports to, Xi its

basis of ambiguous assumptions about labor

imports from industrial sector, Pa is price indexvalues.

of agricultural exports, pi is price index of its

If the intersectoral transactions had been

imports, thus pa/pi is terms of trade formade under the appropriate price system,

agricultural sector.

hidden resource flows must be R‑R*, where R

According to the above conventional wisdom,shows actual resource flows under the official

Xa‑Xi>0, and S>0, however, Ishikawa s hypo-(planned) price system, i.e. R=piXi ‑ paXa. R‑

thesis shows Xa‑Xi<0, and S<0.

R*>0, since pi>pi*, pa*>pa, as implied by

What about China s ISRF, particularly
during the period ofplanned economy ?

Preobrazhensky s theory of scissors prices.
This type of estimates of China s ISRF

Several estimates have been made so far.

seems to be subject to subsequent problems:

These estimates can be classified as two types.

1) Agricultural products consist of many items,

Type A such as Ishikawa(1967), Ishikawa

andprice‑distortionsof the agricultural(1990); Nakagane(1989), which basically supports

products must be different by item. Therefore,

Ishikawa s hypothesis.

it must be wrong to obtain

Type B such as Sheng(1993), Knight andappropriate

prices by multiplying a single correction

Song(1999), Huang et al.(2006), Yuan(2010),

parameter to the official planned prices.

which basically denies this hypothesis.

2) This approach does not take

Type A of estimates is based on official

overpriced

industrial goods into accounts.

(planned) prices, and Preobrazhensky s theory3) But the most serious problem is availabilityof scissors prices can be expressed as pa/pi<1.

of the appropriate prices of Chinese productsType B of estimates, on the other hand, isduring the era concerned.

appropriate prices,

If no domestic market price data werewhich seem to reflect more correctly the realavailable for the Maoist era, how about

supply and demand relations than the official

applying the world price to the calculation ofprices. Type B estimates of China s ISRF can

ISRF for the same period? Collecting bothbe shown as R*=pi*Xi ‑pa*Xa, where pi* anddomestic and world prices of agricultural andpa* represent certain

industrial products for 1952‑2000, Yuan (2010)

based on non‑official,appropriate prices .

Intersectoral Resource Flows in China Revisited---In Memory of the Late Professor Shigeru Ishikawa

５５concluded that China s agriculture had long

However, as long as rural‑urban divide

been taxed indirectly through the skewed

exists, the ISRF issue still remains, though to aplanned price system.

lesser extent than before. It must be a

But this approach is also subject to thepermanent issue until China s economy is fully

following important problem. If market prices

marketized, and the divided two sectors are

were applied in simulation analysis, transaction

completely unified in the true sense.

volumes also must have been changed underthese prices. Assume that every transaction

Reference

were made by free market with p*, then R^, orFei, John and Gustav Ranis (1964), Development of Labor Surplus Economy: Theoryand Policy, Irwin
Ishikawa, Shigeru (1967), Economic Development in Asian Perspective, Kinokuniya
Ishikawa, Shigeru(1967), Net Resource Flow
between Agriculture and Industry : The
Chinese Experience , The Developing
Economies, Vol.5 (1), pp.3‑50
Knight, John and Lina Song(1999), The RuralUrban Divide: Economic Dispaities andInteractions in China, Oxford University
Press
Lee, Teng‑hui (1971), Intersectoral Capital
Flows in the Economic Development ofTaiwan, 1895‑1960, Cornell University
PressLewis, Arthur (1954), Economic Developmentwith Unlimited Supplies of Labour ,Manchester School of Economics andSocial Studies, Vol.22(2), pp.400‑449
Mundle, Sudipto (1981), Surplus Flows andGrowth Imbalances: The Inter ‑Sectoral
Flow of Real Resources in India 1951‑
1971, Allied Publishers Private Ltd.
Li, Bingkun (1985), Guanyu Jiandaocha Dingliangfenxide Jigewenti (Several problems inquantitative analysis of price scissors
prices), Nongye Jingjilun Congshu No.6,Nongye Chubanshe (in Chinese)
Nakagane, Katsuji.
(1989),
Intersectoral
Resource Flows in China Revisited: Who
Provided Industrialization Funds? , The
Developing Economies Vol.7(2), pp.146‑173
Sheng, Yuming(1993), Intersectoral Resource
Flows and China s Economic Development,
St. Martin s Press
Yuan, Tangjun (2010), Chugoku‑no Keizai-

resource flow under the truly free market
system would be pi*X*i ‑pa*X*a .
Truly hidden intersectoral resource transfer,then, must be R‑R^. This hidden transfer
might be zero, because X*i could be more thanXi and X*a could be less than Xa .
How much has Chinese agricultural sector
provided industrialization fund? In what way
did it provide the fund? Is that throughscissors' prices, or underpricing agricultural
products as well as overpricing industrial
products? There seems to be no definite andexact way of calculating ISRF for Maoist China.
However, it is undeniable that Chinese
peasants have contributed to the national
capital formation, by sacrificing themselveswith low income in collectivized agriculture,forced procurement, and hukou (household
registration) system. Industrial workers also
sacrificed their life under therational lowwage system during the Maoist era, but theirsacrifice was much lighter than their counterparts in the rural area. We should notice that
almost no starvation occurred in the cities
after the Great Leap Forward.
Market economy has been expanding inrural China since 1978, as the procurement
system was eliminated in 1992, agricultural tax
was abolished in 2006, hukou

system hasbecome relaxed, and last but not the least, theshare of agriculture in national income hasbeen declining.

５６

中国経済研究hatten‑to Shigenhaibun 1860‑2004 (China s
Economic Development and Resource
Allocation 1860‑2004), Tokyo Daigaku
Shuppankai (in Japanese)

第１２巻第１号(Professor Emeritus of
the University of Tokyo)