This article studies the institutional creation of Chinese stock exchanges and their regulations. It argues that institution creation was largely a function of market forces,local initiatives, path-dependence,and a learning curve. What characterized this institutional transformation was a process in which the central government was first led by various market forces fueled by local political and economic initiatives,then was forced to react by legislating various administrative ordinances to suppress the chaotic and lawless market,and finally resorted to creating a centralized regulatory institution to rein in the fledging stock market.

Scholars working on transition countries are generally more hesitant than they used to be about using the term ‘reformer’. However, few scholars have explored why the term may be unhelpful or what the consequences are if we jettison it for how we think about reform. Such issues form the central focus of the paper. Looking at Vietnam’s second city and business centre, Ho Chi Minh City, the paper argues that the main problem with identifying politicians as reformers is that it gives a distorted picture of what reform is actually about, particularly its underlying logic. In the author’s view, what drives so-called reform has much less to do with issues of ideology, as the focus on reformers would suggest, and much more to do with the playing out of rivalries between new state business interests, which have emerged largely since the late 1980s.

Because of the scarcity of capital the attraction of FDI became an objective which was followed with topmost priority in many post-socialist countries. But how effective were the introduced incentives? The comparative analysis shows that in spite of the advantageous effects of FDI on the transition process, the introduction of tax concessions appears to be of little value. No significant relationship between tax incentives and the level of FDI could be found. This, however, does not mean that the development of FDI was detached from political control. The way in which privatization took place had a big impact and a comparatively low general level of taxes influenced investments positively. Beyond this the general success of transformation was of importance for the attractiveness of a country.