Circle of fortune: The long term impact of Western customs institutions in China

Arbeitspapier

This paper studies the persistent impact of good institutions on economic development in China. By exploiting a British-driven institutional switch in part of China's customs stations in 1902, I find that counties that were more affected by the British customs institutions are also better developed today. Moreover, I show that the institutional switch was exogenous to the pre-colonial development, and I provide different estimation models to reveal a robust and causal relationship between good institutions and economic development.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Discussion Paper Series ; No. 37

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations: Asia including Middle East ; Economic Development: General ; Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems
• Subject: Institutions ; Economic development ; Treaty ports ; Chinese Maritime Customs Service (CMCS) ; China

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Jin, Gan
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Freiburg, Department of International Economic Policy (iep)
• (where): Freiburg i. Br.
• (when): 2018

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/206669
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET