The years of the Great Leap Forward in fact saw economic regression, with 1958 through 1962 being the only period between 1953 and 1985 in which China's economy shrank.Political economist Dwight Perkins argues, enormous amounts of investment produced only modest increases in production or none at all. ...n short, the Great Leap was a very expensive disaster.. In subsequent conferences in March 1960 and May 1962, the negative effects of the Great Leap Forward were studied by the CPC, and Mao was criticized in the party conferences.