Measuring the Early Modern and Modern Chinese Economy

This is a comprehensive guide to measuring the performance of the Chinese economy in historical context, bridging the gap between economic methods and economic history to showcase the cutting edge of quantitative Chinese economic history research.

The book brings together contributions from active scholars working in the area, integrating perspectives and methods from economics, history, and the digital humanities. It shows how Chinese economic history has become an increasingly interdisciplinary field over the past two decades, one that has increasingly adopted economic concepts and methodologies while maintaining a strong qualitative research tradition. The book sheds light on new data sources, methodologies and debates in Chinese economic history research while spanning core topics including taxation, land property, rural economy, population, gross domestic product, wage, lineage, and urbanisation. Chapters survey with unprecedented depth and breadth in current literature how economic data in Chinese history were generated, processed, and utilized byboth the state and the private sector. This volume is expected to help students better identify emerging types of historical data, how to make meaningful use of them, and gain deeper insights into the early modern and modern economic history of China.

Offers a comprehensive guide on methodology and data to study Chinese economic history Reflects on the core topics in global and regional economic history Features contributions from nine experts in Chinese economic history, integrating perspectives

Autorentext

Kaixiang Peng is Professor of Economics at Wuhan University, China. His research examines the long-term performance of the economy and the evolution of market institutions in China, with a particular focus on prices, finance, and market dynamics in Ming and Qing periods.

Ziang Liu is Research Associate at Lau China Institute, King's Collge London, UK. His expertise lies in labour, wages, and long-run living standards in early modern and modern China as well as state capacity and the history of quantification.

Inhalt

Introduction.- Chapter 1: Understanding Chinese Fiscal Data: Institutions, Accounting, and Data Structure, 1368-1850.- Chapter 2: The Fish-Scale Register: Structure and Interpretation of Land Registration and Property Rights.- Chapter 3: Population Registers: The Travelling of Data in Qing China.- Chapter 4: Rural Society in Modern China: Microdata from John Lossing Buck's Survey.- Chapter 5: Historical National Accounting: History, Methodology, and Boundaries.- Chapter 6: Measuring Wage Labour: The Labour Factor Market and Wage Patterns, 16th-19th Centuries.- Chapter 7: Demographic Patterns: Leveraging Large-Scale Micro-Data from Genealogies.- Chapter 8: Urbanisation in Modern China: Evidence from Survey and Map Data.