Myth and reality of China's seventeenth-century monetary crisis

成果类型:
Article; Proceedings Paper
署名作者:
vonGlahn, R
刊物名称:
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
ISSN/ISSBN:
0022-0507
DOI:
10.1017/S0022050700016508
发表日期:
1996
页码:
429-454
关键词:
摘要:
The impact of China's demand for silver on global trade in specie and monetary metals during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries remains poorly understood, Conventional wisdom postulates that seventeenth-century China became so dependent on foreign silver to sustain domestic economic growth that a sharp fall in silver imports in the 1640s led to the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644. This hypothesis rests on dubious theoretical and empirical grounds. The demand for silver in China was determined by long-term changes in indigenous demand for money rather than short-term fluctuations in the flow of silver imports.