High Corruption Income in Ming and Qing China

Shawn Ni () and Van Pham

No 503, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Missouri

Abstract: We develop an economic model that explains historical data on government corruption in Ming and Qing China. In our model, officials extensive powers result in corrupt income matching lands share in output. We estimate corrupt income to be between 14 to 22 times official income resulting in about 22% of agricultural output accruing to 0.4% of the population. The results suggest that eliminating corruption through salary reform was possible in early Ming but impossible by mid-Qing rule. Land reform may also be ineffective because officials could extract the same rents regardless of ownership. High officials incomes and the resulting inequality may have also created distortions and barriers to change that could have contributed to Chinas stagnation over the five centuries 1400-1900s.

Keywords: Corruption; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O10 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pgs.
Date: 2005-02-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-sea and nep-tra
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Published in Journal of Development Economics 2006

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:umc:wpaper:0503

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