Economic wisdom from the margins

This year's two sessions - the annual meetings of the National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference's National Committee - will provide investors with a rare window through which to watch the parade of the nation's local officials. This year's two sessions are particularly important because they are happening in the middle of a transition from the old economic growth model to the new one.

So this is a year of change. But changes do not usually come about in a planned way. More often than not, the most innovative ones will come as something of a surprise, as a phenomenon arising from the periphery rather than from the center, as used to be the case.

In the history of Chinese economic reform, the first victory - namely the unprecedented increase in agricultural output on private farms in the late 1970s - came about thanks largely to local leaders' courageous dismantling of collective farms in Sichuan and Anhui provinces.