SUMMARY OF PANEL DISCUSSION ON ENTERPRISE REFORM: INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ECONOMIC TRANSITION IN CHINA, HAINAN PROVINCE Gary H. Jefferson ABSTRACT: The paper reviews and comments on current research regarding four areas of Chinese industty. These axe: 1) changes in the performance and behavior of state-owned enterprises; 2) proposals for ownership and property rights reform; 3) other policy and institutional issues pertaining to reform of state-owned enterprises; and 4) the role of non-state entertx-ises, paxticularly township-village enterprises, in China’s indust& reform. JEL Classification #s: D2, G, P3. _ INTRODUCTION This summary covers four areas regarding the reform These are: of China’s industrial enterprises.’ 9 changes in the performance and behavior of state-owned enterprises; ii) proposals for ownership and property rights reform; iii) other policy and institutional issues pertaining to the reform of state-owned enter- prises; and iv) the role of non-state enterprises (NSEs), particularly township-village enterprises (TVEs), in China’s industrial reform. THE PERFORMANCE AND BEHAVIOR OF SOEs Published studies show a decisive, if not spectacular, improvement in total factor productiv- ity (TW) growth in Chinese state industry during the 1980s. These are not, however, without challenge as the process of constructing price deflators and assigning appropriate weights to combine single factor productivities using Chinese data can be a slippery exercise.* Still, we find an impressive tendency for estimates of TFP growth in China’s state industry during the 1980s to cluster in the range of two to four percent.* Direct aU correspondence to: Gary Jefferson, Department of Economics, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254. China Economic Review, Volume 4, Number 21993, pages 143-148 Copyright 0 1993 by JAI Press, Inc All ri&s of reproduction in anv form reserved. ISSN: 1043-951X.