儒家孝道、经济增长与文明分岔(英文)

应用经济学方法研究儒家孝道思想对古代社会经济增长的影响机制,可以发现,在信贷市场极不完备的古代,孝道作为一个独特的代际契约履约机制,能在一定程度上克服代际契约中的证实和承诺问题,从而以一种增加储蓄的方式有效促进古代社会的经济增长。然而,实施和维持孝道却不完全是自发的,需要来自统治者的干预。而对于统治者来说,他需要将资源在配置给生产和配置给战争之间权衡。这一权衡决定了一个社会均衡的孝道水平。通过比较中原文明、匈奴游牧文明和罗马文明的历史,证明了上述观点,从而在一定程度上解释了东西方文明的差异。

Confucian Filial Piety, Economic Growth and Divergence among Civilizations

This paper employs an economic approach to analyze the influence of Confucian filial piety on economic growth in ancient China. In the highly imperfect credit market of the time, filial piety, as a unique mechanism for fulfilling intergenerational contracts, could to some extent solve problems of verifiability and commitment and thus effectively promote economic growth by increasing savings. However, the implementation and maintenance of filial piety were not spontaneous; it required external intervention by the rulers. Rulers faced a tradeoff when allocating resources between production and war. It was this tradeoff that determined the level of filial piety in society. A comparison between the civilizations of the Central Plains, nomadic Xiongnu society and ancient Rome verifies our proposition and thus explains in some degree the difference between Eastern and Western civilizations.