论文题目

Why Medieval China Turned Inward: Commerce, Bureaucracy, and Fallen of Utilitarianism.

为何中国转向内在：商业、官僚制度与功利主义的失败

栾笑扬，香港大学经管学院

翟润卓，牛津大学基布尔学院

活动信息

时间：2023年5月7日（星期日） 15:00至17:00

地点：中央财经大学学院南路校区主教310

主讲人：栾笑扬

主持人：钟岳霖

主办单位：创新发展学院应用微观理论与实证讨论班

内容提要

Ideological conservatism has long been held accountable for China’s pre-modern backwardness, but has not received adequate attention from empirical studies. This paper works on the intellectual defeat of utilitarianism to moralism in the Song-Yuan era (10th-14th century C.E.) China to seek answers for the question “Where ideas come from”, and meanwhile to interpret the Great Ideological Divergence across East and West. We first verify the historical observation that commercially prosperous regions produced more disciples of utilitarianism, and then, with evidence from heterogeneity analysis, argue that such commerce-utilitarianism tie was undermined by the shade of centralized bureaucracy, a double-edged Chinese institutional advancement compared with medieval Europe. With these findings we wish to provide an explanation for why China turned inward at an economic, institutional and intellectual peak, as well as a case shedding light on how the economy and institutions could jointly shape ideas.

主讲人介绍

/  栾笑扬 /

香港大学经济学博士三年级。中央财经大学中国经济与管理研究院（CEMA）2016级本科生，本科期间曾在哈佛大学交换。研究方向为经济史。

讲座缘起

学术是什么？我们经常为此困惑。

不仅仅是微观或宏观的研究，也不止于“理论”或“实证”。

然而，我们对这些的了解往往只停留在课本和纸面上，更不要说自己动手进行学术研究了。有时候，我们好不容易找到自己感兴趣的话题，却发现所学知识与实际研究存在差距。那么，我们的所学是否还有意义呢?

为了解答这个疑问，我们准备邀请正在深造读博的学长学姐，以创作者的身份分享他们的研究，分享他们的经历。或许，通过这种“learning by talking”的方式，我们可以更好地理解学术研究的本质和意义。