IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/8791.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political Institution and Long Run Economic Trajectory: Some Lessons from Two Millennia of Chinese Civilization

Author

Listed:
  • Ma, Debin

Abstract

Based on a reconstruction of a weighted index of political unification and a time series of incidences of warfare for the past two millennia, this paper develops a narrative to show that the establishment and consolidation towards a single unitary monopoly of political power in China was an endogenous historical process. Drawing on new institutional economics, this article develops a historical narrative to demonstrate that monopoly rule, a long time-horizon and the large size of the empire could give rise to a path of low-taxation and dynastic stability co-evolving with the growth of a private sector under China?s imperial system. But the fundamental problems of incentive misalignment and information asymmetry within its centralized and hierarchical political structure also placed limits to institutional change necessary for modern economic growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Ma, Debin, 2012. "Political Institution and Long Run Economic Trajectory: Some Lessons from Two Millennia of Chinese Civilization," CEPR Discussion Papers 8791, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8791
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP8791
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Turchin, Peter, 2009. "A theory for formation of large empires," Journal of Global History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 191-217, July.
    2. Debin Ma, 2004. "Growth, institutions and knowledge: a review and reflection on the historiography of 18th–20th century China," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 44(3), pages 259-277, November.
    3. North,Douglass C. & Wallis,John Joseph & Weingast,Barry R., 2013. "Violence and Social Orders," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107646995.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "States and economic growth: Capacity and constraints," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-20.
    2. Ko, Chiu Yu & Koyama, Mark & Sng, Tuan-Hwee, 2014. "Unified China; Divided Europe," MPRA Paper 60418, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jared Rubin & Debin Ma, 2017. "The Paradox of Power: Understanding Fiscal Capacity in Imperial China and Absolutist Regimes," Working Papers 17-02, Chapman University, Economic Science Institute.
    4. Shuo Chen & Debin Ma, 2022. "States and wars: China’s long march towards unity and its consequences, 221 BC – 1911 AD," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _199, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Masahiko Aoki, 2013. "Historical sources of institutional trajectories in economic development: China, Japan and Korea compared," Chapters, in: Comparative Institutional Analysis, chapter 22, pages 439-469, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Ma, Debin & Chen, Shuo, 2020. "States and Wars: China’s Long March towards Unity and its Consequences, 221 BC – 1911 AD," CEPR Discussion Papers 15187, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Chiu Yu Ko & Mark Koyama & Tuan†Hwee Sng, 2018. "Unified China And Divided Europe," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(1), pages 285-327, February.
    8. Qiang Chen, 2014. "Natural Disasters, Ethnic Diversity, and the Size of Nations: Two Thousand Years of Unification and Division in Historical China," SDU Working Papers 2014-01, School of Economics, Shandong University.
    9. Loren Brandt & Debin Ma & Thomas G. Rawski, 2014. "From Divergence to Convergence: Reevaluating the History behind China's Economic Boom," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(1), pages 45-123, March.
    10. Ma, Debin & Rubin, Jared, 2019. "The Paradox of Power: Principal-agent problems and administrative capacity in Imperial China (and other absolutist regimes)," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 277-294.
    11. Ma, Debin, 2021. "Ideology and the Contours of Economic Changes in Modern China during 1850-1950," CEPR Discussion Papers 15835, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Shuo, Chen & Ma, Debin, 2020. "States and Wars: China’s Long March towards Unity and its Consequences, 221 BC – 1911 AD," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 505, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    13. Rui Wang & Qianmao Zhu & Matthew Noellert, 2024. "Weak central government, strong legal rights: the origins of divergent legal institutions in 18th-century Chinese and Japanese rice markets," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Greif, Avner & Tabellini, Guido, 2017. "The clan and the corporation: Sustaining cooperation in China and Europe," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 1-35.
    2. Debin Ma, 2011. "Rock, scissors: the problem of incentives and information in the traditional China state and the origin of the Great Divergence," Working Papers 11002, Economic History Society.
    3. Koyama, Mark & Moriguchi, Chiaki & Sng, Tuan-Hwee, 2018. "Geopolitics and Asia’s little divergence: State building in China and Japan after 1850," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 178-204.
    4. Roland, Gérard & Jia, Ruixue & Xie, Yang, 2021. "A Theory of Power Structure and Institutional Compatibility: China vs. Europe Revisited," CEPR Discussion Papers 15700, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Ma, Debin & Rubin, Jared, 2019. "The Paradox of Power: Principal-agent problems and administrative capacity in Imperial China (and other absolutist regimes)," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 277-294.
    6. Andersson, Krister P. & Smith, Steven M. & Alston, Lee J. & Duchelle, Amy E. & Mwangi, Esther & Larson, Anne M. & de Sassi, Claudio & Sills, Erin O. & Sunderlin, William D. & Wong, Grace Y., 2018. "Wealth and the distribution of benefits from tropical forests: Implications for REDD+," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 510-522.
    7. Indra de Soysa & Synøve Almås, 2019. "Does Ethnolinguistic Diversity Preclude Good Governance? A Comparative Study with Alternative Data, 1990‐2015," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 604-636, November.
    8. Shiran Victoria Shen, 2021. "Integrating Political Science into Climate Modeling: An Example of Internalizing the Costs of Climate-Induced Violence in the Optimal Management of the Climate," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-24, September.
    9. Marianna Belloc & Francesco Drago & Roberto Galbiati, 2016. "Earthquakes, Religion, and Transition to Self-Government in ItalianCities," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1875-1926.
    10. Eric Hilt, 2014. "History of American Corporate Governance: Law, Institutions, and Politics," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, December.
    11. Uribe-Castro, Mateo, 2019. "Expropriation of church wealth and political conflict in 19th century Colombia," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 1-1.
    12. Bramoullé, Yann & Goyal, Sanjeev, 2016. "Favoritism," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 16-27.
    13. Busby, Joshua & Smith, Todd G. & Krishnan, Nisha & Wight, Charles & Vallejo-Gutierrez, Santiago, 2018. "In harm's way: Climate security vulnerability in Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 88-118.
    14. Pamfili Antipa & Vincent Bignon, 2018. "Whither Economic History? Between Narratives and Quantification," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(3), pages 17-36.
    15. World Bank, 2015. "Republic of Yemen," World Bank Publications - Reports 23660, The World Bank Group.
    16. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "Jewish communities and city growth in preindustrial Europe," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 339-354.
    17. Andrianova, Svetlana & Demetriades, Panicos & Xu, Chenggang, 2011. "Political Economy Origins of Financial Markets in Europe and Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 686-699, May.
    18. Richard Langlois, 2013. "The Institutional Revolution: A review essay," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 383-395, December.
    19. Wegner, Gerhard, 2013. "Capitalist transformation without political participation: German capitalism in the first half of the 19th century," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 13/14, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    20. Nan Zhang & Melissa M. Lee, 2020. "Literacy and State–Society Interactions in Nineteenth‐Century France," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 1001-1016, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unification and fragmentation; Incentive and information; Political institution; Warfare;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
    • N4 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:8791. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.