The political economy of famine relief in China, 1740-1820

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Volumn 36, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 33-55

  Shiue, Carol H ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33750975093     PISSN: 00221953     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/0022195054026301     Document Type: Review

References (59)

1. Pierre-Etienne Will (trans. Elborg Foster), Bureaucracy and Famine in Eighteenth Century China (Stanford., 1990), 188-189:
2. Pierre-Etienne Will idem et al., Nourish the People (Ann Arbor. 1991);
3. R. Bin Wong, "Food Riots in the Qing Dynasty, "Journal of Asian Studies, XLI (1982), 767-709;
4. R. Bin Wong, idem and Peter C. Perdue, "Famine's Foes in Ch'ing China," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, XLIII (1983), 291-332.
5. The state granary system probably reached its maximum scale and function in the eighteenth century. Will et al., Nourish the People, 43, date this period as 1736 to 1780.
6. Madeleine Zelin, The Magistrate's Tael: Rationalizing Fiscal Reform in Eighteenth-Century Ch'ing China (Berkeley, 1984);
7. Nancy E. Park, "Corruption in Eighteenth Century China," Journal of Asian Studies, LVI (1997), 967-1005.
8. On the financial constraints of the lower administrations, see John R. Watt, The District Magistrate, in Late Imperial China (New York, 1972).
9. On how provincial authorities could better control the various categories of tax revenue relative to the position of the metropolitan (central) authorities, see E-tu Zen Sun, "The Board of Revenue in Nineteenth Century China," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, XXIV (.1962/63), 175-228.
10. See also Thomas Metzger, The Internal Organization of Ch'ing Bureaucracy: Legal, Normative, and Communication Aspects (Cambridge, Mass., 1973).
11. Will et al., Nourish the People, 160;
12. Zelin, Magistrate's Tael, 42.
13. Zelin, Magistrate's Tael, 81-82.
14. Da Qing lichao shilu [the veritable records of the Qing dynasty], Juan 3, YC, 1,1,1;
15. Robert P. Hymes, "Moral Duty and Self-Regulating Process in Southern Sung Views of Famine Relief," in idem and Conrad Schirokauer (eds.), Ordering the World: Approaches to State and Society in Sung Dynasty China (Berkeley, 1993), 287;
16. Helen Dunstan, Conflicting Counsels to Confuse the Age: A Documentary Study of Political Economy in Qing China, 1644-1840 (Ann Arbor, 1966).
17. Efficient levels of output of a locally provided public good are likely to vary across administrative regions because of differences in preferences and costs. See Wallace E. Oates, "An Essay on Fiscal Federalism," Journal of Economic Literature, XXXVII (1999), 1120-1149, for a survey of the public-finance literature on fiscal federalism.
18. See James A. Mirrlees, "The Optimal Structure of Incentives and Authority within an Organization," Bell Journal of Economics, VII (1976), 105-131;
19. Stephen Ross, "The Economic Theory of Agency: The Principal's Problem," American Economic Review, LXIII (1973), 134-139;
20. Kenneth J. Arrow, Aspects of the Theory of Risk-Bearing (Helsinki, 1965).
21. Population counts for China at this time are always approximate. See John D. Durand, "The Population Statistics of China, A.D. 2-1953," Population Studies, III (1960), 263;
22. Ho Ping-ti, Studies on the Population of China, 1368-1953 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967).
23. If Chang's as-sumption that salaries and payments to government personnel alone absorbed nearly 50 million taels (or about 70% of the total governmental expenditure) is correct, the remaining 30%, or about 0.78% of GNP, was available for other public expenditures. See Chung-li Chang, The Income of the Chinese Gentry (Seattle, 1962), Table 36, 320.
24. On nineteenth-century estimates of revenue, see Dwight Perkins, "Government as an Obstacle to Industrialization," Journal of Economic History, XXVII (1987), 487. According to Chang's calculation of annual gross national product in the 1880s (Table 28. 296). the combined value of central and local government expenditures (using 1885 values from Table 36, 320) was about 2.6% of GNP (73/2781: million taels).
25. On the state's handling of famine and food crises, see Bin Wong, "Food Riots in the Qing Dynasty," Journal of Asian Studies, XLI (1982), 767-709;
26. Bin Wong, idem and Perdue, "Famine's Foes in Ch'ing China." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies. XLIII (1983), 291-332.
27. For a survey of food policy through history, see Lui Tang Feng, Zhongguo Lidai Minshi Zhengceshi (Civilian Food Policy in China's Historical Period) (Beijing, 1993).
28. On English famine policies, see, for example, Cormac Ó'Grá da, Black '47 and Beyond (Princeton, 1999), 77-83.
29. In the mid-eighteenth century, from a total of 73.8 million silver taels of government revenue, 13 million came in the form of the grain tribute. See Yeh-chien Wang, Land Taxation in Imperial China 1750-1911 (Stanford, 1973):
30. Harold Hinton, The Grain Tribute System in China 1845-1911 (Cambridge. Mass., 1956).
31. In 1742/43 and 1785/86. the amount spent for relief was 10 million taels, about 7% of average annual government tax revenues. See Will, Bureaucracy, 298-299.
32. On tax revenues for this period, see Wang, Land Taxation, tables 4.1 and 4.2, 72.
33. On the influence and status of local gentry, see Joseph W. Esherick and Mary Backus Rankin (eds.). Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance (Berkeley. 1993).
34. For the gentry's role with respect to local granaries, see Rankin, "Managed by the People: Officials, Gentry, and the Foshan Charitable Granary, 1794-1845," Late Imperial China, XV (1994), 1-52.
35. Provincial storage figures are reproduced in Will et al., Nourish the People, data appendix, 527-542.
36. Population data are based on tables in Durand. "Population Statistics of China," 351,
37. with the exception of Guangdong Province, the data for which is from Robert B. Marks. "Rice Prices, Food Supply, and Market Structure in Eighteenth-Century South China," Late Imperial China, XII (1991), 64-116.
38. Population for Sichuan is likely underrepresented, leading to misleadingly high per capita estimates. See also Ho, Studies, about the nature of population data for China.
39. Liu, "A Reappraisal of the Functions of the Granary System in Ch'ing China (1644-1911)," in Gast et al. (eds.), Les techniques de conservation ties grains à long terme, 3, fasc. 1 (Paris, 1985). 305-321.
40. The government sent an additional 1.39 million shi (equal in the Qing to about 103.5 liters or 2.94 bushels) to supplement the grain relief available for distribution from civilian granaries in the twenty-seven districts. See Will, Bureaucracy, 170-171.
41. Given that Zhili's granaries held about 1 million shi of grain, and the province had 146 counties during the Qing (according to George M. 11. Playfair, Cities and Towns of China: A Geographical Dictionary [Taipei, 1965]). the stricken counties had around 185,000 shi of grain stocks locally.
42. Will, Bureaucracy, suggests that actual storage amounts were around. 150,000 shi (155), and that total relief distributions for 1.5 years were three to ten times higher than what could normally be collected annually in taxes (152). Zhenji, 6/2a,3a and I/14a-b, 16a-b;
43. Will, Bureaucracy, 247.
44. Chen Zhenhan et al., Qing shilu jingjishi ziliao (Economic History Materials from the Veritable Records) (Beijing, 1989),
45. II (sections on ziran zaikai [natural disasters], 453-675, 693-706;
46. IIIa and IIIb (sections on juanmian huanzheng [Tax exemptions and postponement]), 153-588, 1-238, respectively.
47. For additional details, see Shiue, "Local Granaries and Central Government Disaster Relief: Moral Hazard and Intergovernmental Finance in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century China," Journal of Economic History, LX (2004), 101-125.
48. The figures are based on the provincial gazetteers of Hunan province, which give stocks on normal grain targets during the mid-eighteenth century. The "actual" reserves are scaled estimates based on early nineteenth-century stocks.
49. The sample excludes provinces where wheat, barley, or a mixture of rice and these grains predominated.
50. A comparison of the tax burden per capita conditional on income would require information on regional population and income. The poorer northwestern provinces may have had few instances of tax relief, but they also had lower taxes compared to Jiangsu and Anhwei, which were among the most heavily taxed provinces of the empire.
51. For more discussion of these funds and their uses, see Zelin, Magistrate's Tael, 96, 118-121.
52. The central government had mechanisms in place to check the accuracy of these reports.
53. Dunstan, Conflicting Counsels, 91;
54. Shangyu dang [Archive of Imperial Edicts] QL 9/3/23: QSL/QL. 213:10a-12b.
55. For intergovernmental monitoring, annual audits of public: grain stocks, which originated in 1698, were performed at every level of the hierarchy by the unit directly superior to the one being audited. Da Qing hui dian shili (Precedents and Regulations Supplementing the Collected Statutes of the Great Qing Dynasty). juan 189, hubu jishu, yubei, cangchu;
56. Will et al., Nourish the People, 203-204;
57. Qingchao xu wenxian tongkao (Continuation of the Wenxian tongkao Encyclopedia for the Period 1786-1911), 60/8161, 60/8164;
58. Xichao jizheng, 4/263.
59. See also Will, Bureaucracy, 276.