Household Production in China and Its Comparative Advantage

Abstract

This paperelaborates a new type of productionsystem---Household Production---in China based on a study of Baigou bag industry. Research on Chinese household production has been rare so far, and this paper aims to fill this literaturegap. Through the comparison of household production with SOEs (State Owned Enterprises), TVEs (Township and Village Enterprises) and FEs (Foreign Enterprises) in terms of region, market relation, political relation, organization of work, and reproduction of labor, it is revealed that not only household production is different from the other types of well-known production systems of due to its rural familial characteristics, but also what further distinguishes them is that household production always exists in a context of flexible industrial district which simultaneously promotes and reproduces familial household production.

Keywords: Household production, State owned enterprises, Township and village enterprises, Foreign enterprises, Industrial district.