Banking on the Confucian Clan: Why China Developed Financial Markets so Late

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Chen, Zhiwu; Ma, Chicheng; Sinclair, Andrew J.
• 署名单位: University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueab082
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 1378-1413
• 关键词: EUROPE; NORMS; LAW

摘要

Over the past millennium, China has relied on the Confucian clan to achieve interpersonal cooperation, focusing on kinship and neglecting the development of impersonal institutions needed for external finance. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that the Confucian clan and financial markets are competing substitutes. Using the large cross-regional variation in the adoption of modern banks, we find that regions with historically stronger Confucian clans established significantly fewer modern banks in the four decades following the founding of China's first modern bank in 1897. Our evidence also shows that the clan continues to limit China's financial development today.