Is the battle against inflation in China now over? Can Zhu Rongji, the economic guru turned Chinese premier who has successfully reduced the skyrocketing inflation of the mid-1990s to a near zero level, while yet maintaining high economic growth through the new millennium, relax? These are the key questions raised by China's current economic transition towards a market-based system, and they both revolve around the institutional economics that is the focus of this volume. Dealing specifically with the giant state-owned enterprises (SOEs), Industrial Reform and Macroeconomic Instability in China unravels the intriguing dynamics between industrial deregulation and inflation, in the context of China's continuous search for sustained, stable economic growth without runaway inflation. This book is unique among western studies: it addresses the very core, but to date least reformed sector of the Chinese economy. SOEs have monopolized key industrial supplies, commanded the bulk of national i