报告人：陈硕（复旦大学经济系）

时间：2021年6月1日（周二）下午3:00-4:30

地点：腾讯线上会议（ID：773 294 899，无密码）

主持人：包歌（国际经济贸易学院国际贸易系副教授）

报告题目：Keju, Institutional Commitment, and the Great Divergence

摘要：We argue that the Keju system – merit-based recruitment exams routinely selected the finest from the commoners into the bureaucracy – was an institutional origin rooted behind the great （economic） divergence between China and the West in the past two centuries. Eliciting from 3217 volumes, 46 million words of records in the Twenty-four Histories, we recover the complete personal and career records of 8860 bureaucrats from 578 BCE to 1676. Utilizing a difference-in-differences approach, we present two main findings: 1. Grass-root elites without power bases increasingly entered and occupied the central stage of the power colosseum, replacing the hereditary and inter-connected noble families. 2. However, the fates of grass-root elites in the Keju era fell heavily in the hands of the rulers: they careers were more often disrupted by rulers’ discretion, and such tendency was more significant in positions that were easier to accumulate authority. Through the findings, the paper highlights the institutionalization of an effective bureaucratic hierarchy, investigates the fade-away of the power-sharing commitment between rulers and social elites, and provides an Oriental version of the Game of Thrones, where the imperial rule was prolonged and strengthened at the cost of competition, innovation, and prosperity in growth.

报告人简介：陈硕目前是复旦大学经济系教授。陈的研究兴趣主要集中于发展经济学、政治经济学、经济史及中国经济。陈硕研究成果发表在国际顶尖和国内权威期刊上，目前主持国家自然科学基金青年、面上及重点项目，以及省部级课题及重大课题。

报告人主页：http://ccs.fudan.edu.cn/index.htm