The dual-track price system — one of the signature transitional institutions of China’s reform era — has an origin story that runs through a 1984 master’s thesis. Its author, Zhang Weiying (张维迎), then a graduate student at Northwest University, went on to become a leading domestic advocate of explicit privatization of state-owned enterprises. That combination — early architect of a transitional institution, later champion of going further — makes him the privatization-side anchor of the SOE-reform debate.
Current position
Professor of Economics, Guanghua School of Management, Peking University (per PKU News). He served as Dean of Guanghua from 2006 to 2010.
Positions at the time of key cited work
- 1984 master’s thesis proposing the dual-track price system (价格双轨制): Northwest University.
- 1984–1990 reform policy-making, including the 1984 Moganshan Conference: research fellow, Economic System Reform Institute of China.
- Oxford D.Phil., 1994 (supervisors James Mirrlees and Donald Hay); co-founded the China Center for Economic Research (CCER), Peking University, 1994 (associate professor, then professor, 1994–1997).
- “How the Chinese State Enterprise Reform Works” (China Economic Review, 1997): Guanghua School of Management, PKU (moved September 1997).
- The Logic of the Market (Chinese original, Shanghai People’s Press, ~2010; Cato Institute English edition, 2015): Guanghua School of Management, PKU.
- 2014 Fudan forum debate with Justin Yifu Lin on the role of government: Peking University economist.
Field and expertise
Economics — enterprise theory, price theory, entrepreneurship: dual-track price reform, SOE ownership reform and privatization, entrepreneurship, the economic role of government, and higher-education reform (he helped design the PKU faculty system in 2003). Relevant period: 1984 to the present.
Major works
- 1984 master’s thesis proposing the dual-track price system — full text not located. PKU News (2011) described him as “the first Chinese economist in China who proposed the ‘dual-track price system reform’ [in 1984]” when awarding him the 4th China Economic Theory Innovation Award. The “first” is PKU’s description, not settled history — see the dispute section below.
- “How the Chinese State Enterprise Reform Works” (China Economic Review, 1997): the thesis that managerial discretion was hardening budget constraints.
- The Logic of the Market: An Insider’s View of Chinese Economic Reform (Cato Institute English edition, 2015; Chinese original ~2010).
- Essays in Money China (2006): the one-off-compensation-for-reform-losers thesis — “short-term pain to prevent long-term agony” (reported by PKU English).
- Theory and China Enterprise Reform (企业理论与中国企业改革, 1999): contains his “theorem of the impossibility of the entrepreneur in a state-owned economy” (国家所有制下的企业家不可能定理); also Incentives and the Art of Leadership (2005), Price, Market and Entrepreneurs (2006), Leadership and the Fate of Enterprise (2007).
- 1995–96 ownership-reform writings: summarized in an MPRA-hosted paper as arguing that “the only way out was to transfer ‘state-owned’ enterprises to ‘non-state-owned’ enterprises,” with state-owned shareholder rights transformed into creditor rights or otherwise withdrawn. The primary texts were not located.
The priority dispute
PKU says he was “the first Chinese economist in China who proposed the ‘dual-track price system reform’ [in 1984]” (PKU News, 2011). English-language historiography (e.g., Naughton’s Growing Out of the Plan) describes dual-track pricing emerging as a policy process across 1984–85 involving multiple economists and officials, with no established single author. The 1984 proposal is an early documented articulation; the “first” attribution remains contested. This page does not present PKU’s description as settled fact, and wherever the dual-track origin story appears, this caveat should travel with it.
Documented positions (attributed to Zhang Weiying)
- Dual-track price reform as a transitional institution lowering transition cost — moving from the plan track to the free-market price system.
- SOE privatization: “the only way out was to transfer ‘state-owned’ enterprises to ‘non-state-owned’ enterprises”; state-owned shareholder rights transformed into creditor rights or otherwise withdrawn.
- “The state withdraws and the private sector advances” (国退民进); the 1990s wave of small-SOE privatization cited as validation.
- Complete withdrawal of government from economic management: “It is the marketization and development of non-state sectors, rather than the strong power of government and the state sector, that have driven the Chinese economy to grow fast” (2019 Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies article; Cato 2025 summary).
- One-off compensation for officials and workers bearing reform costs.
- Entrepreneurship as central to the sustainable operation of any economy (the China Story profile).
Documented clashes
- 2004: defended private acquisition of SOEs against Lang Xianping’s attack on MBO-related state-asset stripping; the defense drew public fire.
- 2014 Fudan forum: debated Justin Yifu Lin on the government’s economic role — Lin for a positive government role, Zhang for complete withdrawal.
- 2010 removal as Guanghua dean: a school colleague attributed the removal to his radical views distracting from dean duties (attributed; not independently confirmed).
Cato (2025) describes him as “instrumental in laying the framework for China’s move from plan to market” — Cato’s characterization.
What this entry does not cover
- The 1984 thesis full text was not located; the priority question above is contested.
- The 1995–96 ownership-reform primary texts were not located.
- His position on land privatization is not documented in the sources consulted.
Selected sources
- PKU News English, 4th China Economic Theory Innovation Award (November 6, 2011): https://newsen.pku.edu.cn/news_events/news/focus/1094.html — dual-track award citation and the “first” description (recorded as PKU’s description)
- “How the Chinese State Enterprise Reform Works,” China Economic Review, 1997 (abstract)
- The Logic of the Market (Cato Institute English edition, 2015)
- MPRA-hosted paper summarizing Zhang 1995b, 1996 (ownership-reform summary)
- The China Story (ANU) profile (books, entrepreneurship views)