【主题】Land Equalization, Social Mobility, and the Rise of Civil Service Exam System
【时间】 2015年05月29日（周五）中午 12:30-14:00
【地点】 8797威尼斯老品牌202室
【主讲人简介】
管汉晖，8797威尼斯老品牌副教授。2008年清华经济管理学院应用经济学博士后流动站出站后到北大8797威尼斯老品牌任教，主要教授中国经济史，经济史研究方法论等课程。研究领域包括长期经济发展，长期收入分配，货币体制和财政体制的长期演变等。
【讲座内容】
The Civil Service Exam System in Imperial China, which is the earliest Official Selection System in the world, and also is foundation of the Civil Servant System of western countries, appeared in replace of the Hereditary System in Tang Dynasty (618-907). This paper seeks for the economic driving force behind this political institutions transformation. We find that the implementation of Land Equalization policy could explain why the rise of Civil Service Exam System happened in Tang China. The long-term enforcement of Land Equalization policy impaired economic base of aristocrat groups as well as their monopoly political power; therefore, social structure became more horizontal than in the aristocrat and hereditary system. For this reason, the aristocrat groups had to share political power with elites selected from the populace by means of examination, which induced the rise of Civil Service Exam System. Probit regression using a newly-constructed dataset from first-hand biographies provided solid empirical evidence for our conjectures, and IV estimation verifies that the relationship is causal. Our finding suggests that only if economic factor changed social structure thoroughly, it could lead to momentous political institution transition.
