Chinese History in Economic PerspectiveThomas G. Rawski, Lillian M. Li This volume marks a turning point in the study of Chinese economic history. It arose from a realization that the economic history of China—as opposed to the history of the Chinese economy—had yet to be written. Most histories of the Chinese economy, whether by Western or Chinese scholars, tend to view the economy in institutional or social terms. In contrast, the studies in this volume break new ground by systematically applying economic theory and methods to the study of China. While demonstrating to historians the advantages of an economic perspective, the contributors, comprising both historians and economists, offer important new insights concerning issues of long-standing interest to both disciplines. Part One, on price behavior, presents for the first time preliminary analyses of the incomparably rich and important grain price data from the imperial archives in Beijing and Taibei during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911). These studies reveal long-term trends in the Chinese economy since the seventeenth century and contain surprising discoveries about market integration, the agricultural economy, and demographic behavior in different regions of China. The essays in Part Two, on market response, deal with different aspects of the economy of Republican China (1912–49), showing that markets for land, labor, and capital sometimes functioned as predicted by models of economic "rationality" but at other times behaved in ways that can be explained only by combining economic analysis with knowledge of political, regional, class, and gender differences. Based on new types of data, they suggest novel interpretations of the Chinese economic experience. The resulting collection is interdisciplinary scholarship of a high order, which weaves together the analytic framework provided by economic theory and the rich texture of social phenomena gathered by accomplished historians. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1992. |
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agricultural analysis annual average Baoding Beijing birth Cambridge capital cash changes Chinese cocoons commercial concentration correlations cotton County crop currency Daoyi distribution earnings economic history economists eighteenth century estimates export factory farm female Fenghua fertility Gansu Gini coefficient grain prices granary growth harvest Heartland Hebei high and low historians household incomes Hunan increase industry inequality Jiangnan Jiangsu jingji Jingzhou labor market land landholdings Late Imperial China Lianggezhuang low prices male Manchuria market integration merchants Michang millet Millet Prices million month monthly mulberry nineteenth century Ningbo North China patterns peasants percent population prefectures price data production Qing dynasty rates region regression reported Rice Prices River rural sericulture Shaanxi Shandong Shanghai silkworm silver sorghum Southwest Subei Suzhou Table taels taels per shi Taibei tion trade trends villages wages Wang wheat workers Wuxi xianzhi Yangzhou Yangzi Yangzi Delta yuan Yuyao Zhejiang Zhili Zhili Province Zhongguo