【题目】Political Reunification and Market Integration: Evidence from Civil War in Republican China

【时间】2023年12月14日（周四）16:00

【地点】文二栋301会议室

【主讲人】梁若冰  教授

【主持人】吴明琴  教授

【摘要】Political fragmentation hinders the improvement of national capacity and thus affects the long-term economic development. This paper examines the influence of political integration on economic integration, an important factor affecting economic growth. Based on the newly acquired county-level price data of the Republic of China, this paper constructs the price distance database of rice, cloth, wheat, and flour among 320 regions in the country, and empirically analyzes the influence of the conquer of local warlords of Guizhou and Guangdong provinces by the Nanking National Government (NNG) on market integration by using the differernce-in-differences (DID) model. It found that compared with the regional pair of other warlords-controlled areas and NNG controlled areas, the relative rice price gap between the Guizhou, Guangdong and NNG-controlled areas decreased significantly by 31.8% after the military conquest. This result remains robust after accounting for alternative variables, including additional control variables, alternative treatment and control groups, sensitivity to boundary distances, and time effects, while also excluding potential disturbances caused by likin (business tax) reforms and currency reforms. Finally, we investigate the primary mechanisms through which political integration affects market integration and discovers that economic endowments conducive to reducing trade costs attenuate the effects of political consolidation on market integration.

【主讲人简介】北京大学经济学博士，曾在新加坡国立大学东亚研究所和香港科技大学社会科学部从事博士后研究工作，目前担任厦门大学经济学院财政系教授，博士生导师。在American Journal of Agricultural Economics、《经济研究》《管理世界》《经济学（季刊）》《世界经济》《中国工业经济》《金融研究》《统计研究》《财贸经济》《数量经济技术经济研究》《财政研究》等学术期刊发表50多篇论文，主持国家自然科学基金面上项目、福建省软科学面上项目以及厦门大学中央高校基本科研业务费专项资金项目各两项，主持国家社会科学基金重大项目子课题与重点项目子课题、北京大学林肯研究院城市发展与土地政策研究中心基金项目以及教育部人文社科一般项目各一项，获得“福建省高等学校新世纪优秀人才”，担任福建省经济学会副会长、国家自科基金评委、《经济研究》《管理世界》《经济学（季刊）》《世界经济》《中国工业经济》、China Economic Review等期刊的匿名审稿人。