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Spatial scales of inflation and deflation

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journal contribution
posted on 2025-04-14, 14:44 authored by Steven RolfSteven Rolf
Isabella Weber’s book is a prodigious contribution to the political economy of Chinese development. One of the text’s most valuable contributions is its identification of the consistently anti-inflationary stance of CCP policy. Its coverage of debates surrounding price stability and liberalisation during the shifts away from the plan in the late 1980s is particularly valuable. Here, I focus on the question of inflation, which since 2021 has dramatically appeared on the agenda for the first time in the professional lives of many political economists and geographers in the global north. The book provides valuable, fine-grained evidence from contemporary Chinese policymakers (above all through a reading of Zhao Ziyang’s writings) to make the case that the inflationary pressures experienced in China as the government experimented with reforming the planned economy during the late 1980s were not principally monetary phenomena – nor were they understood as such by contemporary actors. I build on the text by showing how it demonstrates the relevance of exploring the inflation question at a variety of spatial scales. I conclude by considering how contemporary Chinese policymakers may negotiate this inflationary ‘scale-jumping’.

Funding

Digital Futures at Work Research Centre : ESRC-ECONOMIC & SOCIAL RESEARCH COUNCIL | ES/S012532/1

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Environment and Planning A

ISSN

0308-518X

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Issue

7

Volume

55

Page range

1821-1826

Department affiliated with

  • Management Publications
  • Business and Management Publications

Institution

University of Sussex

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes