Taisu Zhang's Books

This survey of the fiscal history of China's last imperial dynasty explains why its ability to tax was unusually weak. It argues that the answer lies in the internal ideological worldviews of the political elite, rather than in external political or economic constraints.

Zhang argues that property institutions in preindustrial China and England were a cause of China's lagging development in preindustrial times.

Tying together cultural history, legal history, and institutional economics, The Laws and Economics of Confucianism: Kinship and Property in Preindustrial China and England offers a novel argument as to why Chinese and English preindustrial economic development went down different paths. The dominance of Neo-Confucian social hierarchies in Late Imperial and Republican China, under which advanced age and generational seniority were the primary determinants of sociopolitical status, allowed many poor but senior individuals to possess status and political authority highly disproportionate to their wealth. In comparison, landed wealth was a fairly strict prerequisite for high status and authority in the far more 'individualist' society of early modern England, essentially excluding low-income individuals from secular positions of prestige and leadership. Zhang argues that this social difference had major consequences for property institutions and agricultural production.

Book's by Taisu Zhang

The Ideological Foundations of Qing Taxation

The Ideological Foundations of Qing Taxation

The Ideological Foundations of Qing Taxation

The Ideological Foundations of Qing Taxation

The Laws and Economics of Confucianism

The Laws and Economics of Confucianism

The Laws and Economics of Confucianism

The Laws and Economics of Confucianism

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