The paper aims to examine Karl Polanyi's view of market evolution in the context of the emergence of a national grain market in China's transition economy.
The dataset used includes information about inter‐provincial grain trade on China's grain market from November 1999 to October 2000. A priori blockmodelling method is used for hypothesis testing.
This paper finds that a partially integrated national grain market had emerged at the beginning of the twenty‐first century in China in spite of local protectionism. Additionally, the emergence of this market is found to be partly a result of the reform‐oriented state's attempt to create national wholesale grain markets.
The findings of the paper might have implications for market development in both China and other transition economies.
