Characteristics of Economic Crises in Traditional China

Yanan Wang ()
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Yanan Wang: Xiamen University

Chapter 31 in The Basic Theory of Chinese Economy, 2026, pp 195-198 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract In this section, I argue that economic crises in traditional China, understood within the framework of a centralized feudal order based on a landlord economy, display distinctive features. Because fiscal extraction and tribute were ultimately realized through markets, and because land could be transferred with relatively greater mobility than in many manorial systems, China developed a large, internally connected economic space with high circulation and flexibility. These same characteristics, however, made crises more expansive and more “social” in origin: prosperity tended to slide into fiscal extravagance, heavier exactions, commercial–official collusion, usury, and land concentration, which impoverished the peasantry and weakened production. Once this deterioration set in, natural disasters and warfare typically acted less as primary causes than as accelerants, pushing a broad economic breakdown that culminated in dynastic collapse and subsequent recovery through land redistribution.

Date: 2026
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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-95-6330-2_31

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