The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial Revolution Did Not Originate in China
Author(s): Justin Yifu Lin
Source: Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Jan., 1995), pp. 269-292
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1154499
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The Needham Puzzle: Why the Industrial
Revolution Did Not Originatein China*
Justin Yifu Lin
Peking University,AustralianNational University,
and Duke University
I. Introduction
One of the most intriguingissues for students of Chinese history and
comparativeeconomic history is, Why did the IndustrialRevolution
not occur in China in the fourteenth century? At that time, almost
every element that economists and historiansusually considered to be
a major contributingfactor to the IndustrialRevolution in late eighteenth-centuryEnglandalso existed in China.
Chinese civilization,like the civilizationsof Mesopotamia,Egypt,
and India, originatedfrom agriculture.The first unified empire, Qin,
was formed in 221 B.C. By 300 B.C., Chinese society had developed
into a form that had many characteristicsof a marketeconomy, with
most land privately owned, a high degree of social division of labor,
fairlyfree movementof labor, and well-functioningfactor and product
markets.1
This comparativelydeveloped "marketeconomy" probably created importantattitudes toward profit and contributed to the swift
diffusion of the best technology. In the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D.
220), the iron-tippedplow, moldboard,and seed drillwere widely used
in the northernpart of China, where the main crops were millet and
wheat. The most significantimprovementsin Chinese agriculturecame
with the populationshift fromthe northto the rice-growingareas south
of the Yangtze River that startedat the beginningof the ninth century,
and especially after the introduction of a new variety known as
"Champarice" from Indochinaat the beginningof the eleventh century.2 This variety, characterizedby better drought resistance and
faster ripening,enabledfarmersto extend the agriculturalfrontierfrom
the lowlands, deltas, basins, and river valleys to the better-watered
hill areas, and allowedproductionof two and even three crops a year.3
The changefromdrylandcrops to wetlandrice led to a spurtof innova? 1995by The Universityof Chicago.All rightsreserved.
0013-0079/95/4302-0025$01.00
270
EconomicDevelopmentand CulturalChange
tions in farm implements, includingan improved plow that required
less draft power, a share plow that could turn over sod to form a
furrow, and the deep-tooth harrow.4Many of the elements of Arthur
Young's scientific(conservation)agriculture,which led to the agricultural revolution in England in the eighteenth century, had become
standardpractice in Chinabefore the thirteenthcentury.5By the thirteenth century Chinaprobablyhad the most sophisticatedagriculture
and Chinese fields probablyproducedthe highest yields in the world.
China'spremodernachievementsin science and technology were
even more remarkable.Gunpowder,the magneticcompass, and paper
and printing,which FrancisBacon consideredas the three most important inventions facilitatingthe West's transformationfrom the Dark
Ages to the modern world, were invented in China. Evidence documentedin the monumentalworks of Joseph Needham and his collaborators shows that, except in the past 2 or 3 centuries, China had a
considerablelead over the Western world in most of the majorareas
of science and technology.6
It is no surprisethat, based on this "advanced" technology, Chinese industrywas highly developed. The total outputof iron was estimated to have reached 150,000tons in the late eleventh century. On
a per capita basis, this was five to six times the European output.7
Equallyimpressivewas the advancementin the textile industry.In the
thirteenthcentury, a water-poweredreeling machinewas adaptedfor
the spinningof hemp thread, which was as advanced as anything in
Europe until about 1700.8
High agriculturalproductivityand advanced industry facilitated
the early developmentof commerce and urbanization.Peasants were
linkedto ruralmarketfairs, which in turnwere integratedin a national
commercenetworkby canals, rivers, and roads. In additionto staples
like rice, many local products, such as particulartypes of paper and
cloth, became knownand availablenationwide.9Manycities flourished
in the thirteenthcentury,astonishingeven that sophisticatedVenetian,
Marco Polo. Accordingto him, "Su-chou is so large that it measures
about forty miles in circumference.It has so many inhabitantsthat
one could not reckon their number";and Hang-chou"without doubt
the finest and most splendid city in the world, . . . anyone seeing such
a multitudewould believe it a stark impossibilitythat food could be
found to fill so many mouths."10In short, China by the fourteenth
century was probably the most cosmopolitan, technologically advanced and economicallypowerfulcivilizationin the world. Compared
to China, "the West . . . was essentially agrarian and ...
was poorer
and underdeveloped."11
In retrospect,Chinahad a brilliantstartand remainedcreative for
several thousand years of premodernhistory. Many historians agree
that by the fourteenthcenturyChinahad achieveda burstof technolog-
Justin Yifu Lin
271
ical and economic progress, and that it had reachedthe thresholdlevel
for a full-fledgedscientific and industrialrevolution.12However, despite its early advances in science, technology, and institutions,China
did not take the next step. Therefore,when progressin the West accelerated after the seventeenth century, China began to lag farther and
fartherbehind. Needham put this paradoxin the form of two challenging questions: first, why had China been so far in advance of other
civilizations;and second, why isn't Chinanow ahead of the rest of the
world?13The goal of this article is to bring several relevant factors
together that may provide a partialexplanationto this puzzle.
Several hypotheses have been proposed by prominent scholars.
These explanationscan be classified into two categories: those based
on failures of demand for technology and those based on failures of
supply of technology. Section II reviews the existing demand-failure
hypotheses. It is followed in Section III by a hypothesis of my own,
which is essentially a supply-failurehypothesis. Section IV explores
the factors inhibitingthe developmentof modernscience and technology in China and reviews other existing supply-failurehypotheses. A
summaryand some concludingremarksare in Section V.
II. The High-LevelEquilibriumTrap
The most widely accepted hypothesis for China's later stagnationhas
been the "high-level equilibriumtrap," first proposed by Mark Elvin
and furtherexpoundedby AnthonyTang, Kang Chao, and other writers.'4 After reviewing China's many astonishingtechnologicaland institutionalachievements before the fourteenthcentury, Elvin first refutes with convincing examples and evidence several conventional
hypotheses, such as inadequatecapital, restricted markets, political
hazards, and lack of entrepreneurshipin China, as explanations for
the stagnationof China's technical creativity.15He then argues that
the prime cause was unfavorableman-to-landratio. Elvin's hypothesis, with Tang's and Chao's modifications,can be presented in a nutshell, as follows.16
China'searly acquisitionof "modern"institutions,such as family
farming,fee-simpleownership,and the marketsystem, providedeffective incentives for technologicalinnovationand diffusion. Therefore,
the advancementof science and technology was initially much more
rapidin Chinathan in Europe. However, the Chinese family's obsession with male heirs to extend the family lineage encouraged early
marriageand high fertility despite deterioratingeconomic conditions,
resultingin a rapidexpansionof population.The possibilityfor continued expansion of the amount of cultivated land was limited. At the
end China stood at a position "where the level of living was subsistence and where the populationwas so large in relation to resources
and the technologicalpotentialswere so fully exploitedthat any further
272
EconomicDevelopmentand CulturalChange
advances in output would have requiredincreases in populationand
consumptionthat would have out-strippedthe resulting rise in food
supply."17The rising man-to-landratio implied that labor became increasingly cheap and resources and capital increasingly expensive.
Therefore, the demand for labor-saving technology also declined.
Moreover, the rising man-to-landratio also implieda diminishingsurplus per capita. As a result, Chinadid not have a surplusto be tapped
for sustained industrialization.Even though China had already approachedthe thresholdof industrialrevolutionin the fourteenthcentury, "by that time populationhad grownto the point where there was
no longer any need for labor-savingdevices."'8 On the contrary, Europe enjoyeda favorableman-to-landratioand a legacy of unexploited,
traditionaleconomic and technologicalpossibilities, because of its hereditaryfeudal system. Althoughits scientificand technologicaldevelopment lagged behind China's in premodernages, by the time sufficient knowledge was accumulatedto the threshold of an industrial
revolution, "a strong need to save labor was still acutely felt,"19and
a large agriculturalsurplus was available to serve "as the principal
means of financingindustrialization."20
Although the above hypothesis is interesting, there are several
reasons for abandoningthis model as a valid explanationof China's
failure to launch a full-fledgedindustrialrevolution in the fourteenth
century. I will first examine the implicationsof the man-to-landratio
for technologicalinnovationand then will discuss the issue of "depletion of agriculturalsurplus."
The centralassumptionimplicitin the above hypothesis is that of
a boundedpotentialof agriculturein premodernages. However, given
the land, labor, and social institutions, the potential of agriculture,
whether in modernor premodernages, is a function of technology. If
the developmentof technology is not inhibited,an "equilibriumtrap"
due to the adverse man-to-landratio is not present. Therefore, the
crucial issue is whether the lack of inventive creativity is a result of
the rising man-to-landratio.
It is true that up to the twelfth century, there was a steady flow
of labor-savinginnovationsin plows and other farm implements, and
that after that few labor-savingimplementswere invented, as shown
by Chao.2' However, changes in the orientationof inventionwere not
due to the worseningof man-to-landratio, as Chao claimed. As figure
1 shows, China'spopulationincreaseduntil about 1200, declined until
approximately1400, and recovered to the 1200level at approximately
1500. It reached a new peak at about 1600, collapsed again by about
1650, and thereafterhas grown continuously. Due to the decline in
population, the estimated per capita acreage at the end of the fourteenth century was actually about 50%higher than that at the end of
the eleventh century and was even about 10%higher than that at the
1000
900 -
Han
206 B.C.-A.D.
800 -
T'ang
Sung
Yuan
Ming
Ch'ing
618-907
96- 1279
1279-1368
1368-1644
1644-1911
220
700 -
9 635
600 -
500 -515
475
400 -39
_5'I
:
330
300 265w
225,
200 -
0/
100
100-~~~~~
100
j530
42
"
503
U
o
6
,'79",*-44 58
_-_
e-"
36
26 31 36 31 26 29 3
5025
r
'.
o
o
/ /10
180
_0--w 120
60
0o
8 c8
,
oo
oN
--
o~o
c
?~
1975
FIG.1.-Population in China(in millions;A. Feuerwerker,"Chinese Economic History in ComparativePerspective," in Heritage of China, ed. Paul
S. Ropp [Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1990],
p. 227).
273
EconomicDevelopmentand CulturalChange
274
TABLE 1
PERCAPITAACREAGE
OFCULTIVATED
LAND,A.D. 2-1887
CULTIVATED
LAND
POPULATION
Year
Amount
(Million Mu)
Year
Number
(Million)
PERCAPITA
ACREAGE
(Mu)
2
105
146
976
1072
1393
1581
1662
1784
1812
1887
571
535
507
255
666
522
793
570
886
943
1,154
2
105
146
961
1109
1391
1592
1657
1776
1800
1848
59
53
47
32
121
60
200
72
268
295
426
9.67
10.09
10.78
7.96
5.50
8.70
3.96
7.92
3.30
3.19
2.70
SOURCE.-Kang Chao, Man and Land in Chinese History: An
Economic Analysis (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press,
1986), p. 89.
end of the tenth century (see table 1). The per capita acreage in
the mid-seventeethcenturywas also higherthan that at the end of the
eleventh century. If the man-to-landratio were the valid explanation
for the burst of labor-savinginnovations up to the twelfth century,
then that rate should have been even higher in the fourteenth and
fifteenthcenturies and again in the mid-seventeenthcentury.
Moreover,even if we take the man-to-landratioin the early twentieth century as the point of discussion, the claim that there was "no
need for labor-savingdevices" is tenuous. Because of widespreaddouble-cropping,labor shortageshave always existed duringthe peak season when farmershave to simultaneouslyreap the first crop and prepare the land and sow or transplantthe second crop. According to
John Buck's survey in the 1920s, there was on average only one and
a half months free of field labor for the whole of China. Most of this
periodwas accountedfor by winterunemploymentin the drylandfarming areas of northernChina. In the irrigatedparts of southern China
there were hardly any periods duringthe year in which farm households were not fully occupiedin agriculturalactivities.22Therefore,the
relativelylow rate of labor-savinginventionsafter the twelfth century
cannot be explained by the fact that the populationhad grown to the
point where there was no longer any need for labor-savingdevices, as
the hypothesis claimed.23
The otherreason, impliedin the above hypothesisand emphasized
by Elvin and Tang, for why the demand for technology might have
been dampenedis an "inadequate"agriculturalsurplus arising from
the adverse man-to-landratio. However, this explanationhas several
Justin Yifu Lin
275
problems.First, fromthe precedingdiscussion of demographicdynamics and per capitaacreage, we can conclude that, given the technological level and social institutions,the surplusper capitain the fourteenth
and fifteenthcenturiesshouldhave been higherthan that in the twelfth
century, especially afterthe periodof peace usheredin by the founding
of the Ming dynasty in 1368.Whatwe find, however, is a deceleration
of labor-savinginnovations.
Second, even if we take the twentiethcenturyas a referencepoint
for discussion, the claim that the high man-to-landratio had depleted
the agriculturalsurplus as a source for capital formation cannot be
supportedempirically.Accordingto CarlRiskin's estimates, 31.2%of
China's net domestic product was available for "nonessential" consumptionin 1933.24Such estimatescertainlydependon how "essential
consumption"and "essential governmentexpenditures"are defined.
Riskin's findingsindicate that the income flow in 1933 could provide
for a rate of investment above 11% of national income, cited by
W. W. Rostow and other economists as a thresholdlevel for sustained
economic development.25Moreover, the average rate of national income used for capital accumulationduringthe first 5-year plan period
(1953-57) under the socialist governmentwas 24.2%.26At that time,
agriculturaltechnology was still essentially traditional.27
From the above discussions, I find that the fact that the Industrial
Revolution failed to occur in China in the fourteenthcentury cannot
be attributedto a lack of demandfor new technology, as asserted by
the "high-levelequilibriumtrap" hypothesis.
III. Population,Science,and Invention
Given a set of inputs, a technologicalinnovationmust bringwith it an
increase in output. So long as humans' materialdesires are not satiated, the demandfor new, better, and more cost-effective technologies
is always present, though changes in the relative scarcity of labor and
landin an economy may alterthe patternsof invention.If technological
change fails to take place, the problemdoes not stem from a lack of
demandbut from a failureon the supply side.28To address the Needham puzzle, we thus need to turn our attention to the supply side of
technology.
Britain's IndustrialRevolution in the eighteenth century is often
identifiedwith the mechanizationof the textile industry, the exploitation of iron and coal, and Watt's invention of an atmosphericsteam
engine. However, what really distinguishedthe IndustrialRevolution
from other epochs of innovationbursts in humanhistory, such as the
one in the eighth-to twelfth-centuryChina,was its sustainedhigh and
acceleratingrates of technologicalinnovation.The problemof China's
failure to initiate an industrialrevolution in the fourteenth century,
therefore,is not simply a question of why Chinadid not take a further
276
Economic Development and Cultural Change
step to improve its water-poweredhemp-spinningmachine. Rather,
the questionis why the speed of technologicalinnovationdid not accelerate after the fourteenthcentury, despite China'shigh rate of technological innovationin the pre-fourteenth-century
period.
The key to this question may lie in the different ways in which
new technology is discovered or invented. The hypothesis I propose
as a likely explanationto the Needhampuzzle is as follows: in premodern times, technological invention basically stems from experience,
whereas in moderntimes, it mainly results from experimentcum science. Chinahad an early lead in technologybecause in the experiencebased technologicalinventionprocess the size of populationis an important determinantof the rate of invention. China fell behind the
West in moderntimes because Chinadid not make the shift from the
experience-basedprocess of inventionto the experimentcum sciencebased innovation,while Europedid so throughthe scientificrevolution
in the seventeenth century.
To supportthe above hypothesis, I will first present a simple stochastic model of technologicalinvention a la Robert S. Evenson and
Yoav Kislev and then will use it to analyze the historicaldevelopment
in China and Europe.29
A. A Model of Technological Invention
A technology can be defined as a body of knowledge about how to
combine a set of inputs for producinga certain product. The net output, measured in a value term, produced by a given technology is
defined as the productivity of the technology. A better technology
means one with higherproductivity.The supply of technology comes
from inventive activity, which can be describedas "trialand error"or
"hit or miss" performedby the potentialinventors, includingfarmers,
artisans, tinkers, and researchersin the fields or in the laboratories.
Each trial produces a technology with a certain productivity level,
which is representedas a point under an invention distributioncurve
(see fig. 2A).30A trial can thus be perceived as a random draw from
the inventiondistribution.Figure2A portraysthe basic features of the
inventiondistributioncurve.31If a draw results in a technology with a
higher productivitythan the existing technology, a better technology
is invented. The probabilityof inventinga better technology by a random drawcan be measuredby the shadedarea in figure2A. The adoption of a bettertechnologyto productionis called technologicalinnovation, which requires a diffusion process and time. For simplicity in
describingthe model, I will assume that once a better technology is
invented, it is adoptedby the whole economy.32
The mean and variance of the invention distributionfunction for
an inventor is a function, among other things, of the inventor's stock
of scientificknowledgeand ingenuity,the materialavailablefor inven-
277
Justin Yifu Lin
Productivity
(A)
(B)
FIG.
Productivity
curve
2.-The inventiondistribution
tion, and the surroundingphysical environment. An increase in an
inventor's stock of scientific knowledge increases the mean of his invention distributionfunction, shown in figure 2B as a rightwardshift
of the distributioncurve.33Differentinventors may have different invention distributionfunctions because of differences in their stock of
scientificknowledge. Therefore,with a given technologicallevel in an
economy, the increase of an inventor's scientificknowledge improves
the probabilityof his inventinga better technology. It is also possible
for an inventor with a low stock of scientific knowledge to make big
inventions, althoughthe probabilityof such events is low.
It is worth mentioningthat scientific knowledge itself is a result
of the trial and errorof scientificresearch, which can be described in
a similarway to the invention of technology. However, science and
technology have several different characteristics. Technological
knowledgeis used directly for the productionof outputs, while scientific knowledgeis used to derive testable hypotheses about the characteristics of the physical world, which may or may not facilitate the
production of technology. New technology can be discovered by a
veteranfarmeror an artisanas a result of casual work, while scientific
progress, especially in moder times, is more likely to be made by
278
Economic Development and Cultural Change
scientistsfollowinga rigorousscientificmethod.This scientificmethod
is characterizedby a "mathematization"of hypotheses about nature
Because scientific knowlcombinedwith relentless experimentation.34
must
be
inventors
before it can affect
edge
acquiredby technological
the outcome of invention, there is a time lag between progress in science and progressin technology.
An inventor'singenuityaffects his inventiondistributionfunction.
That is, the better an inventor'singenuity,the greaterthe likelihoodof
his inventinga better technology. However, the distributionof innate
ingenuity is assumed here to be the same across nations and times.
Changein the availablematerialscan also changethe mean, and probably also the variance,of the inventiondistributionfunction. One salient
example is the progress from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, and
then to the Iron Age. Takingthe example of plows, the productivity
of an iron plow is in generalhigherthan that of a bronze plow, which
in turn is higherthan that of a stone plow.
The model used here assumes that the source of invention is trial
and error. It is importantfor our discussion to distinguishtwo types
of trial and error:one is experiencebased and the other is experiment
based. Experience-basedtrial and errorrefers to spontaneousactivity
that a peasant, artisan,or tinkerperformsin the course of production.
Experiment-basedtrial and errorrefers to deliberate, intense activity
of an inventor for the explicit purpose of inventing new technology.
New technology obtainedfrom experience is virtuallyfree, while that
obtainedthroughexperimentis costly. However, in a single production
period an artisanor farmercan have only one trial, while an inventor
can performmanytrialsby experiment.Since experience-basedinvention involves no cost and is a spontaneousresult of production,costreturncalculationsare not involved in experience-basedinvention. On
the other hand, economic considerationsare a key factor in determining the undertakingof experiment-basedinvention.35
It is possible to extend the above model in several directions.
However, it is sufficientto suggest a new perspectiveon the Needham
puzzle by the several implicationsthat can be drawnfrom this simple
model: (1) The likelihoodof inventinga better technology is a positive
function of the number of trials. (2) The probabilityof inventing a
better technology is a negative function of the highest productivityof
previous draws from the invention distribution-the level of existing
technology. (3) Increases in the stock of scientific knowledge and improvements in the quality of available materials raise an inventor's
likelihoodof findinga better technology.
B. Technological Change in Premodern and Modern Times
Technologicalinnovation,by definition,is an improvementin productivity. What distinguishestechnologicalinnovationin the modern age
Justin Yifu Lin
279
from that in premodernages is the higher rate of innovation in the
modem age, which is a consequence of the shift in the method of
technological invention. Although in some cases systematic experimentalmethodswere used in premoderntimes, as, for example, in the
discovery of magneticdeclinationin China,36it is an accepted view that
technological invention was predominatelyderived from experience.
Inventions were made by artisans or farmersas minor modifications
of existing technology as a result of experience obtained from the
productionprocess.37The experimentalmethod became the predominant way of findingnew knowledgeonly after the scientificrevolution
in the seventeenth century. The use of science to guide experiments
came even later.
The first hypothesis from the above model predicts that, when
experience is the majorsource of technologicalinvention, the size of
population in an economy is an importantfactor in determiningthe
rate of inventionand the level of technology in that economy. A larger
populationimplies more farmers,more artisans, more tinkers, and so
on and, therefore, more trial and error. Moreover, given the assumption that the level and distributionof the innate ingenuitytends to be
the same statisticallyfor large and small populations,a largerpopulation thus implies that there would be a largerpool of gifted people in
that economy. From the model described in Section A, we can conclude that in premoderntimes a large population contributed positively, in a probabilisticsense, to the level of technology and the rate
of technologicalinvention,ceteris paribus.38This may explainwhy the
great civilizations of antiquitywere located in Mesopotamia, Egypt,
and India, where fertile river valleys were favorable for agriculture
and could supporta large population.
Chinese civilizationoriginatedon the Loess Plateauin northwestern China, later than the great river civilizations. During the Former
and Later Han dynasties (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) China's populationwas
concentratedon the North China Plain and to the west of the gorges
of the Yellow River. The principalgrainwas millet, but wheat, barley,
and rice were also grown. Duringthe fourth and fifth centuries A.D.,
Chinese settlers began to migratein large numbers into the Yangtze
River valley. Initiallythe method of farmingwas very crude, mainly
slash-and-burn.As morepeople moved south, farmingbecame settled,
and wetlandrice cultivationbeganto dominate.The patternof Chinese
agriculturethat was practicedup to moder times essentially was establishedby the Song dynasty (960-1279).
Figure 1 shows that Chinahad about twice the populationof Europe until about 1300.39The aforementionedinvention model predicts
that, with experience as the principalsource of technological invention, China had a higher probabilitythan Europe of discovering new
technology. In the eighthto twelfth century, the burst of inventions in
280
EconomicDevelopmentand CulturalChange
Chinaprobablywas due partlyto the increase in populationand partly
to the shift of populationfrom the northto the south.40Accompanying
this shift was the transitionfrom drylandcrops to wetland rice, which
with suitable technology brought a much higher yield than dryland
crops.41 However, with the originaldrylandfarmingtechnology, the
yield of rice was still much lower than its potential. This shift in crops
amounted to a rightwardshift of the invention distributionfunction
arisingfrom the change in materialavailableto inventors. Therefore,
there was a burst in technology related to rice farming,includingnew
tools, new crop rotations, and hundreds of types of new seed. The
many other technological innovations in this period, such as water
transportation,which Elvin ably documentedin his celebrated book,
also could be explainedby the same line of reasoning.
Conventionalwisdom has often arguedthat China'sachievements
in ancient times were due to its early acquisitionof "modernm"
socioeconomic institutions,includingthe unifiednation-state,family farms,
free labormigration,and so forth, which shouldhave facilitateda more
rapiddiffusionof technology once invented.42However, to the extent
that technological inventions in premodernages were fundamentally
experience based and independentof economic calculations, the impact of socioeconomic institutionson technological invention was at
most indirect, based on the possibility that fast diffusion of better
technologymighthave allowedthe economy to sustaina largerpopulation than it would have otherwise.
After a decline of populationduringthe twelfth to fourteenthcenturies, China'spopulationstartedto grow exponentially,except during
the short period from 1600 to 1650. From the first hypothesis in the
inventionmodel, a largerpopulationimpliesthat there is more trialand
errorand, therefore,more invention. However, the second hypothesis
predicts that, given an invention distributioncurve, the marginalreturnsto the probabilityof inventionfroma largerpopulationwill eventually diminish. The post-fourteenth-centuryexperience in China
seems to supportthe implicationof the second hypothesis. After the
burst of technologicalinvention from the eighth to twelfth centuries,
the technologicallevel moves to the rightend of the experience-based
invention distributioncurve. Inventionwas still possible and actually
continuedto appear,but the probabilityof big breakthroughsbecame
smallerand smaller.Most inventionstook the form of minormodifications. Technological change could not recover to a higher rate until
there was a rightwardshift in the invention distributioncurve, made
possible by applyingGalilean-Newtonianphysics, Mendeliangenetics,
and contemporarybiological, chemical, plant, animal, and soil sciences.43
During the period of experience-based technological invention,
Europe was at a comparativedisadvantagedue to its smaller popula-
Justin Yifu Lin
281
tion-a smallerpopulationmeans a smallernumberof trials. However,
this disadvantagewas counteredby the shift to experiment-basedtechnological invention and the closer integrationof science and technology arisingfrom the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century.
Of course, as mentioned above, the experimentalmethod had been
used to invent technology even in ancient times. However, the popularizationof the experimentas a vehicle for inventingnew technology
was a phenomenonthat emergedonly after the scientific revolution.44
The experimentalmethod removes the constraintsof population size
on technologicalinvention. The numberof trials that an inventor can
performin a laboratorywithin a year may be as many as thousands of
farmersor artisanscould performin their lifetimes. However, if only
experimentalmethods had been applied,the result would have been a
single burst of technological inventions, as in the eighth to twelfth
centuriesin China.Soon thereafter,Europewould have faced the gradual exhaustion of invention potential and a slowdown in the rate of
innovation,as Chinadid afterthe fourteenthcentury. Therefore,more
importantthan the popularizationof the experimentalmethod is the
continuous shift to the right of the invention distributionfunction by
the increasingintegrationof science with technology.
As in any society, science and technologyin Europeinitiallywere
separate and distinct: science was viewed as philosophy, while technology was the practice of artisans. Scientists had no interest in, or
inclination toward, technological affairs, and technological developments were mostly the results of the toil of unletteredartisans. It was
only by the time of Galileo that "sciences concerned with utilitarian
technology had found spokesmen capable of winning attention and
commandingrespect."45At the beginning,the contributionof science
to technology was sporadic; in fact, whether or not science was a
majorcontributingfactor to the IndustrialRevolutionin the eighteenth
century is still subject to debate.46However, at least by the midnineteenth century, science had already begun to play an important
role in technologicalinvention.47The sustainedaccelerationin the rate
of technological innovation that is a major characteristicof modern
economic growth is made possible only by the continuous rightward
shift of the invention curve broughtabout by the continuous progress
in science.48Needham found evidence that Chinabegan losing ground
to Europe in the technologicalrace only after the scientific revolution
had occurredin Europe.49
IV. Why a ScientificRevolutionDid Not Occurin China
Any discussion of the Needhampuzzle is incompletewithoutan explanation of why moder science did not arise in China. As stated above,
science, in essence, is a body of systematic knowledge about nature
that is expandedthrougha mechanismsimilarto that of technological
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Economic Development and Cultural Change
invention, that is, the process of trial and error. China's large population gave it a comparativeadvantage in developing science in premoder times. However, since the advent of the scientific revolution,
scientific discoveries have been made primarilyby a new and more
effective methodthat is the combinationof two elements:(a) mathematization of hypotheses about nature, and (b) using controlled experiments or replicabletests to examine the validity of hypotheses. The
Chinesewere not historicallyunreceptiveto the experimentalmethod.
In fact, in ancient times, they had conducted more systematic experimentations than did the Greeks or the medieval Europeans.50The
question, then, is why the many gifted of China's large population,
with the advantagesof superiorearly achievement, did not make the
transitionto the new methodologyin the fourteenth,fifteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenthcenturies.The key to this problemlies in various
factors that inhibitedthe growth of modern science in China.
Considerableresearch, includingsome by Needham himself, has
been done in an attempt to identify the inhibitingfactors in China's
politico-economicinstitutions. A survey of all existing hypotheses is
beyond the purview of this article. I will only comment on two of
them. Needham's explanationis that China had a "bureaucraticsystem," which arose fromthe need of maintainingits vast arrayof irrigation systems, while Europe had an "aristocraticfeudalism," which
was relatively more favorableto the emergenceof a mercantileclass.
When the aristocracydecayed, it gave birthto capitalismand modern
science. The bureaucraticsystem in Chinaat firstwas favorableto the
growthof science. However, it inhibitedthe emergenceof mercantilistic values and thus "was not capableof fusing togetherthe techniques
of the higherartisanatewith the methods of mathematicaland logical
reasoningwhich the scholarshad workedout, so that the passage from
the Vincianto the Galileanstage in the developmentof modernnatural
science was not achieved, [and was] perhapsnot possible."5"
In a similarvein, thoughwith differentemphasis, Wen-yuanQian
and othersarguethat it was China'simperialandideologicalunification
that prohibitedthe growth of modernscience.52In their view, intolerance was common to all premodernsocieties. In Europe, however,
there were competitions between church and state, between church
and church, and between state and state, which made the resistance
to new basic ideas less effective. Therefore,Europe's cluster of more
or less independentstates created favorable conditions for scientific
development. China, on the other hand, was ruled by one dominant
ideologicalsystem backedby absolutepoliticalpower, and no genuine
public dispute was allowed. As a result, despite the fact that "the
Chinese people have been innovativein mechanicalskills and technologies, traditionalChina's politico-ideologicalinhibitionskept Chinese
Justin Yifu Lin
283
people from makingdirect contributionsto the theoreticalinfrastructure and methodologicalfoundationsof modern science."53
The above explanationsimprove our understandingof the issues
in some ways. However, discriminationagainstmerchantsand artisans
in ancient Chinawas probablynot as serious as Needham makes out.
As legally defined, traditionalChina was at once a Confucian and a
"physiocratic"state; merchantswere the lowest social class within a
four-class scheme. However, there was a discrepancybetween legal
texts and social realities. Historical data reveal that successful merchants, moneylenders, and industrialistsof the Former Han period
(206 B.C.-A.D. 8) were treated almost as social equals by vassal kings
and marquises.54By the medieval period, big business and financial
organizationshad already appearedand flourishedin China, most of
them owned by members of gentry families. Therefore, young men
who were not interestedin books and learningbut had an adventurous
personality could find socially approvedoutlets in commerce.55Furthermore,duringthe Ming-Qingperiod,the discriminatorylaws forbidding merchantsto take civil service examinationswere formally removed. After 1451, the channel for purchasing offices and even
academic degrees was opened. Thus money could be directly translated into position and became one of the determinants of social
status.56
It is also true that, as Qianargues,throughthe civil service examinations China was able to effectively impose a state ideology. However, Qian may have overstressed the shacklingeffects of ideological
and politicaluniformityon intellectualcreativity.One counterexample
to Qian's assertionwas the challengeof WangYangming(1472-1529)
to traditionalphilosophy and social order. Wang's teaching stressed
heterodox intuitive knowledge, the intrinsic equality of all men and
the unity of knowledgeand conduct, all in sharpcontrastto the official
neo-Confucian philosophy that emphasized academic conservatism
and social status quo. His teaching initiated a powerful social movement and numerousfollowers and admirersestablished hundreds of
private academies (shuyuan)to disseminate Wang's philosophy. Althoughthe Mingcourt proscribedhis teachingin 1537, 1579,and 1625,
Wang's disciples were able to continue the movement, and they left a
permanentimprinton the nation's educationalsystem.57Admittedly,
the political environmentwas not conducive to unorthodoxthinking.
However, if a revolutionaryphilosophysuch as WangYangming'swas
able to emerge and take root, the effects of ideological rigidity on
intellectualcreativityin premodernChinamust not have been as inhibitive as Qianbelieves. Revolutionarymovementsoften have to emerge
in settingsunfavorableto theirexistence. Copernicus,Kepler, Galileo,
and otherpioneersof the scientificrevolutionin Europehad to contend
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EconomicDevelopmentand CulturalChange
with schoolmen who upheld the dogma of the authority and omniscience of the classics and even had to risk their lives in religious
courts. In fact, it may be that the pioneers of the scientific revolution
in premodernChinahad to battle harderthan their Europeancontemporariesfor social recognitionand acceptance, due to such factors as
pointed out by Needham, Qian, and others; however, it is also fair
to say that politico-ideologicalauthorityin premoder China was not
absolute and that the Chinese system did not in itself preclude the
possibility for geniuses to make revolutionarybreakthroughs.58
I agree with Needham, Qian, and others that China's failure to
make the transitionfrom premodernscience to modernscience probably had somethingto do with China'ssociopoliticalsystem. However,
the key to the question is not so much that this system prohibited
intellectual creativity, as they argued, but rather that the incentive
structureof the system divertedthe intelligentsiaaway from scientific
endeavors, especially from the mathematizationof hypotheses about
natureand controlledexperimentation.
In premoderntimes, many scientificfindingswere made spontaneously by geniuses with innate acumen in observing nature. Individual
ingenuityis, of course, importantfor the progress of modem science.
However, the advance of modernscience from its inceptionhas relied
on the mathematicalsystematizationof hypotheses about the external
universe and on tests by controlledexperiment.To be able to accomplish this, a scientistmust have updatedknowledgeabout the universe,
as well as trainingin abstractmathematicsand controlledexperimental
methods. This knowledge and traininggives scientists a stock of acquiredhumancapitalwith which to observe natureto determinewhat
can be added to science by empiricalobservationand experiments. A
larger populationmeans more geniuses, and therefore, in premodern
times, implied probabilisticallymore achievements in premodernscience. However, even thoughthere may be many geniuses in a society,
without the necessary acquiredhumancapital, the society will not be
able to launch a scientific revolution. This special human capital, a
necessary requirementfor membershipin the club of modern science,
is expensive and time-consumingto acquire.
For several reasons, which are embedded in China's historical
and political legacy, the gifted in ancient China had fewer incentives
than their Western contemporariesto acquire the human capital requiredfor "modern" scientific research. In the West, the states were
governedby hereditaryfeudal aristocrats.In China, after the Qin unification in 221 B.c., the state was ruled by bureaucrats.Civil service
examinationswere instituted during the Sui dynasty (589-617), and
after the Song dynasty (960-1275), all bureaucrats were selected
through competitive civil service examinations. Government service
was by far the most honorableand in every sense the most worthwhile
Justin Yifu Lin
285
occupationin premodernChina.Therefore,traditionalChinese society
considered entry into the rulingbureaucracythe final goal of upward
social mobility.59Naturally, the gifted were attracted to these jobs,
and they had ample incentives to invest their time and resources in
accumulatingthe human capital required for passing the examinations.60The basic readingsfor the examinations,which students had
to memorize by heart, were the Confucian classics, with a total of
431,286 characters.61That required 6 years of memorization, at the
rate of 200 charactersa day. After memorizingthe classics, students
were requiredto read commentariesseveral times the length of the
originaltexts and to carefullyscan other philosophical,historical, and
literary works, which were needed as a basis for writing poems and
Because of the strictlydefinedcurriculum
essays in the examinations.62
for the examinations, most people, including most of society's geniuses, would not have had the incentive to devote time and resources
before passing the examinationsto the type of humancapital required
for scientific research. Moreover, once they passed the examinations,
they would be occupied with the demands of officialdom and with
officialladderclimbing,and thus would for the most part still have no
time or incentive for acquiringthose types of humancapital.63
In premoderntimes China's population was larger than that of
Europe. This would indicate that China had more geniuses than Europe in premoderntimes. However, because of the incentive system
created by the specific form of civil service examinationand officialdom, fewer of the gifted in Chinathanthose in Europewere interested
in acquiringthe human capital essential for the scientific revolution.
Therefore,despite her earlylead in scientificachievement,Chinafailed
to have an indigenousscientific revolution.64
V. ConcludingRemarks
In this article I have attempteda hypothesis for the puzzle: Why was
China's science and technology so far in advance of other civilizations
historically,only to fall in moder times? Many causes may have contributedto this paradoxicalphenomenon. In this article I postulate a
simple hypothesis with a few relevantfactors that are ignoredby most
students of Chinese history as well as of comparativeeconomic history. In premodern times, most technological inventions stemmed
from the experiences of artisans and farmers, and scientific findings
were made spontaneously by a few geniuses with innate acumen in
observing nature. In modern times, technological inventions mainly
result from experimentcum science. Scientific discovery is made primarilyby the techniqueof mathematizedhypotheses and models about
naturetested by controlled experimentor replicabletests, which can
more reliably be performedby scientists with special training.Under
the premodernmodel of technologicalinvention and scientific discov-
286
EconomicDevelopmentand CulturalChange
ery, the largerthe populationin a society, the greaterthe numberof
experiencedartisans,farmers,and geniuses in the society. Therefore,
other things being equal, more advance in technology and science
would be more likely to occur in a largersociety. Chinahad comparative advantagesin premoderntimes because of its largepopulationbut
fell behind the West in modem times because technologicalinvention
in China continued to rely on happenstance and experience, while
Europe changed to planned experimentcum science in the scientific
revolutionof the seventeenthcentury. The reason that Chinafailed to
have a scientific revolution I have attributedhere to the contents of
civil service examinationsand the criteria of promotion, which distracted the attention of intellectuals away from investing the human
capitalnecessary for modernscientificresearch.Therefore,the probability of makinga transitionfrom primitivescience to modern science
was reduced.
To the extent that the above hypothesis is valid, several policy
implicationsfor economic development are in order. In premodern
times the large populationsize in an economy is potentially an asset
for economic growth, as a large populationis likely to contributeto a
higherrate of technologicalinnovationand scientific discovery in that
economy. Experience-basedinvention is still an importantsource of
technologicalchangein moderntimes, especially with respect to minor
modificationsof existing technology. However, if this largepopulation
is ill equippedwith the acquiredhumancapitalnecessary for undertaking modem scientific researchand experiment,the likelihood that the
economy will contributeto modem technologicalinvention and scientific discovery is small. For a developing country in modern times,
manytechnologiescan certainlybe importedfromdeveloped countries
at a much lower cost than the cost of inventingthem independently.
However, many empiricalstudies have found that the success or failure of technology transferscrucially depends on the domestic ability
to follow up with adaptive innovations on the imported technology,
which in turn depends on domestic scientific research capacity.65
Therefore,in moderntimes a large populationis no longer an endowment for economic development.More importantthan the size of the
populationis educationwith an emphasis on modem curriculum.
Notes
* An earlierversion of this articlewas presentedat seminarsat the AustralianNational University, the Hong Kong University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Peking University. I am indebtedto the participants
in those seminarsfor their insightfulcomments. I am especially grateful to
Arman Alchian, Mark Elvin, Dean Jamison, E. L. Jones, James Lee, Joel
Mokyr, Jean-LaurentRosenthal, Scott Rozelle, Kenneth Sokoloff, and three
anonymousreferees for helpful suggestions. Robert Ashmore gave a helpful
exposition review.
Justin Yifu Lin
287
1. KangChao, Man and Land in ChineseHistory:An EconomicAnalysis
(Stanford,Calif.: StanfordUniversity Press, 1986),pp. 2-3.
2. Ping-tiHo, "Early RipeningRice in Chinese History," Economic History Review 2, ser. 9 (December 1956):200-218.
3. It is worthmentioningthat, like manymoder agriculturalinnovations,
the promotionof Champarice was sponsoredby the government.The Song
emperorChen-Zongbought a large quantityof Champarice from the south
and made it availableto farmersin the Yangtze delta (Chao, p. 200).
4. Ibid., p. 224.
5. Anthony Tang, "China's AgriculturalLegacy," Economic Development and CulturalChange 28 (October1979):1-22.
6. Before Joseph Needham's works on China's achievementsin science
and technology, few people in the West, or in China, for that matter, understood that many of the basic inventionsand discoveries upon which the modern world rests came from China. Needham's research started in 1937 as a
result of his befriendingsome Chinese students in Cambridgewho had profound knowledge of the history of Chinese science. His systematic research
startedin 1948, and the first volume of Science and Civilizationin China was
publishedin 1954by CambridgeUniversityPress. More than 10 volumes have
been publishedand several more volumes are underpreparation.
7. E. L. Jones, The EuropeanMiracle, 2d ed. (Cambridge:Cambridge
University Press, 1987),p. 202.
8. MarkElvin, ThePatternof the ChinesePast (Stanford,Calif.:Stanford
University Press, 1973),p. 195;and Jones, p. 202.
9. Elvin, p. 166.
10. Quoted in ibid., p. 177.
11. CarloM. Cipolla,Before the IndustrialRevolution:EuropeanSociety
and Economy, 1000-1700, 2d ed. (New York: Norton, 1980),p. 171.
12. Chao; Elvin; Tang (n. 5 above); Joseph Needham, Science in Traditional China:A ComparativePerspective(Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1981);and WolframEberhard,"Data on the Structureof the Chinese City in the Pre-IndustrialPeriod," EconomicDevelopmentand Cultural
Change 5 (October 1956):253-68.
13. Joseph Needham, "Introduction,"in China:Land of Discovery and
PatrickStephens, 1986),
Invention,by RobertK. G. Temple(Wellingborough:
p. 6.
14. Elvin, chap. 17; Chao; and Tang.
15. Elvin's discussionis enlightening.However, I will not repeathis arguments here, for the sake of brevity. Readers interested in these arguments
may refer to Elvin, pp. 286-98.
16. Although their general views on China's unfavorableland-to-labor
ratioand its implicationfor industrializationare similar,Elvin, Tang, and Chao
have differentemphases. WhileElvin and Tang stress diminishingagricultural
surplus and China's inability to support a sustained industrialization,Chao
emphasizes the swelling labor surplus and its impact on demand for laborsaving technology. Additionally,Elvin does not explain the mechanismthat
led to the explosive populationgrowth.
17. Tang, p. 7.
18. Chao, p. 227.
19. Ibid.
20. Tang, p. 19. In additionto the unfavorableman-landratio, Elvin also
viewed static marketsas a factor inhibitingtechnical creativity in China. Although China had large, integratednational markets, e.g., for cotton cloth,
Elvin argued, "It was not the size of the eighteenth-centuryBritish market
288
Economic Development and Cultural Change
(tiny comparedto that of China)but the speed of its growththat put pressure
on the means of productionthere to improve" (p. 318). However, this argumentis misleading.Beforethe revolutionin England'scotton industry,Europe
had already importedcotton cloth from Asia. However, "by hand methods
Europeanscould not producecotton cloth in competitionwith the East. But
the marketwas endless if cotton could be spun, woven, and printedwith less
labor, i.e., by machine" (R. R. Palmer and Joel Colton, A History of the
Modern World,6th ed. [New York: Knopf, 1984], p. 429). Therefore, as in
China,the marketsize for the Britishcotton industrywas initiallystatic. The
growingpotentialcame from the cost-competitivenessof mechanizedproduction. If there had been an industrialrevolutionin China'scotton industrythat
made costs of productionlower than those of the traditionaltechnology, the
market potential in China for the "modern mechanized" firms would have
been endless also. Elvin's explanationis also not consistent with the fact that
duringthe firstcenturyof the Mingdynasty(1368-1644)and the Qingdynasty
(1645-1911), the Chinese economy was booming. A similarview on the role
of marketexpansionwas advancedby Jones, althoughhe attributedthe stagnation of markets in China as well as in Turkey and India to the invasion of
Manchu, Ottoman,and Mughal-all minoritiesfrom the steppes. He argued
that "the economiesbecamecommandhierarchiesimposedon customaryagricultures. These weakenedinvestmentin humanand physical capital, slowing
and divertingfor the durationof the empiresmuch furthergrowthof the market" (pp. xxiv-xxv [n. 7. above]). If Jones's explanationfor the slowdown in
the Manchuempire(1645-1911)is valid, Chinashouldhave had briskdevelopment under the Ming empire(1368-1644), which was ruled by Han Chinese.
However, the slowdownin technologicaldevelopmentwas alreadyunderway
duringthe Ming dynasty.
21. Chao points out that among the 68 majorfarm implementsthat appeared after 221 B.C.and before modem times in China, 35 were invented
between 961 and 1279, and only four were invented in 1369-1644. Among
these four, two were labor using ratherthan labor saving in nature(p. 195).
22. JohnL. Buck, Land Utilizationin China(Nanjing:NanjingUniversity
Press, 1937).
23. The above discussion does not imply that the change in man-to-land
ratio has no consequencesfor technologicalinnovationin an economy. Since
relativescarcitiesof resourceendowmentsin an economy affect relativeprices
of those resources,for the purposeof cost minimization,the optimalintensities
of capital, labor, and land usage embodiedin a technology for performinga
certain task will be differentfrom economy to economy and from region to
regionwithinan economy. For example,when Japanimportedtextile machinery fromBritainin the late nineteenthcentury,most of the innovationsinvolving the importedtextile machinerymade the machinerymore labor-intensive;
as a result, there was a substantialdecline in the capital-laborratio between
1886-90 and 1891-95 in the firmsusingthe Britishmachinery(KeijiroOtsuka,
GustavRanis, and Gary Saxonhouse, ComparativeTechnologyChoice in Development:The Indian and Japanese TextileIndustries[New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988], p. 21). The reason for that type of modificationwas that
the capitalintensityof Britishmachinerywas tailoredto Britain'scapital and
labor endowments, which differedfrom Japan's. A similarphenomenonwas
also found when foreigntechnologywas transferredto China.RobertF. Dernberger's study of China'smoder sector in the early twentiethcentury shows
that Chinese industrytended to be small and had a high labor-capitalratio.
However, the unfavorableman-to-landratio did not inhibit the demand for
new technology, as "Chinese-ownedfactories in the modern manufacturing
Justin Yifu Lin
289
sector outnumberedforeign-ownedfactories by more than ten to one" ("The
Role of the Foreignerin China'sEconomicDevelopment," in China'sModern
Economy in Historical Perspective, ed. Dwight H. Perkins [Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press, 1975], p. 41). In the above examples, the new
technology, even after the adjustmentin labor-usinginnovations, was still
more capital-intensivethan the indigenous technology. As pointed out by
W. E. G. Salter, "the entrepreneuris interestedin reducingcost in total, not
particular costs such as labor costs or capital costs. . . . Any advance that
reduces total costs is welcome, and whether this is achieved by saving labor
or capital is irrelevant" (Productivity and Technical Change [Cambridge: Cam-
bridgeUniversity Press, 1960],p. 43).
24. CarlRiskin, "Surplusand Stagnationin Moder China," in Perkins,
ed.
25. W. W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cam-
bridgeUniversity Press, 1960).
26. State Statistical Bureau, China Statistical Yearbook, 1988 (Beijing:
Zhongguotongji chubianshe, 1988),p. 60.
27. Dwight H. Perkins and Shahid Yusuf, Rural Development in China
(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984),chap. 4.
28. Theodore W. Schultz, Transforming Traditional Agriculture (New
Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1964).
29. RobertE. Evenson and Yoav Kislev, "A StochasticModelof Applied
Research," Journal of Political Economy 84 (April 1976): 265-81.
30. This assumptionimplicitlyassumes that numeroustechnologies, each
with a differentcombinationof inputs, can have the same productivitylevel.
31. In the figure, we assume that the distributionfunction is standard
normal.However, the argumentsin this articleare independentof the type of
the distributionfunction.
32. This assumptionis harmless because of the long time span in the
article. A better technology will eventuallyprevailin an economy.
33. In the figure,we assume that the increase in the inventor's stock of
scientificknowledgeresults in a rightwardshift in the mean of distributionof
the invention distributionfunction without changingthe variance. However,
the increase in the stock of scientificknowledgecan also result in an increase
in the varianceof the distributionwithout changingthe mean. The increase in
both the mean and the variance will increase the likelihood of inventing a
better technology. For a mathematicproof of the statement,see Evenson and
Kislev. Of course, the mean and variance of the distributioncan also be
changedat the same time.
34. Joseph Needham, The Grand Titration: Science and Society in East
and West (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969),p. 15. For furtherdiscussions on
scientificdiscoveries, see Sec. IV of this article.
35. The Schmookler-Grilicheshypothesis of marketdemand-inducedinvention and the Hicks-Hayami-Ruttanhypothesis of relative factor scarcityinducedinventionare relevantonly for analyzingexperiment-basedinvention.
However, for the adoption of technology, economic considerations should
have been relevantsince antiquity(Zvi Griliches, "HybridCorn:An Exploration in the Economics of Technological Change," Econometrica 25, no. 4
[October 1957]: 501-22; Jacob Schmookler, Invention and Economic Growth
[Cambridge,Mass.: HarvardUniversityPress, 1966];JohnR. Hicks, The Theory of Wages [London: Macmillan, 1932]; Yujiro Hayami and Vernon W.
Ruttan, Agricultural Development: An International Perspective [Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971]).
36. Needham, Science in Traditional China (n. 6 above), p. 22.
290
Economic Development and Cultural Change
37. Cipolla (n. 11 above), A. E. Musson, ed. Science, Technology,and
Economic Growthin the EighteenthCentury(London:Methuen, 1972),p. 58.
38. The contributionof populationto inventionis emphasizedby William
Petty, Simon Kuznets, F. Hayek, and Julian Simon. See the discussion by
Julian L. Simon, Theoryof Population and Economic Growth (New York:
Blackwell, 1986),chap. 1. It should be emphasizedthat the above arguments
are true only in a probabilisticsense. The model does not imply that a small
country cannot make a majorcontributionto technologicalinvention. It only
implies that, when experience is the majorsource of technologicalinvention,
the probabilityof such event is smallerfor a small country than for a large
country.
39. In antiquity,a determinantfactorof the populationsize in an economy
was the carryingcapacity of the agriculture,which depends on physical environmentand technology. The physicalenvironmentin Chinawas not particularly favorable for agriculture,comparedto the fertile river valleys (Ping-ti
Ho, Huangtuyu zhongguonongye de qiyuan[Loess and the originof Chinese
agriculture][Hong Kong: Chinese UniversityPress, 1969]).However, probably due to luck, Chinawas early in inventingthe technologyof row cultivation
and intensive hoeing (sixth century
B.C.),
the iron plow (sixth century
B.C.),
the efficienthorse harness (fourthcenturyB.C.), the multitubeseed drill (second centuryB.C.), and so forth(RobertK. G. Temple, China:Land of Discovery and Invention[Wellingborough:PatrickStephens, 1986]).Therefore, agriculturalproductivityin Chinawas relativelyhighcomparedto that in Europe
at that time. This mighthave contributedto China'slargerpopulation.
40. In the first century A.D., more than 75% of the Chinese population
was in the north;by the end of the thirteenthcentury, the opposite was true.
Beginningwith the fourteenthcentury, the populationin the north recovered
graduallyto reach about 45% in the twentieth century (Elvin [n. 8 above],
chap. 14).
41. The averageyield of millet, wheat, and rice in the fourteenthcentury
is estimatedto be 104, 108, and 310 catties, respectively (Chao [n. 1 above],
p. 215).
42. Ibid.; Elvin; Needham, Science in TraditionalChina (n. 12 above);
and Tang (n. 5 above).
43. As predicted by the third hypothesis of the model, as the Chinese
acquiredmodernmethodsandbettermaterialsin the formof Western-designed
machinerywith contactwith the West in the late nineteenthcentury,creativity
reappeared(Elvin, p. 315).
44. Peter Mathias, "Who UnboundPrometheus?Science and Technical
Change, 1600-1800," in Musson, ed. (n. 37 above).
45. Cipolla(n. 11 above), p. 244.
46. Musson, ed.
47. Rondo Cameron,A ConciseEconomicHistoryof the World(Oxford:
OxfordUniversityPress, 1989),p. 165.
48. Hicks (n. 35 above), p. 145; Simon Kuznets, Modern Economic
Growth:Rate, Structure,and Spread (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1966),pp. 10-11; Nathan Rosenbergand L. E. Birdzell, Jr., How the
West GrewRich (New York: Basic Books, 1986),p. 23.
49. Needham,Science in TraditionalChina,p. 122.Thatthe lack of modern science limits the possibility of technologicalinvention is acknowledged
but not developed by Elvin (p. 297);Tang; and Chao (p. 227).
50. Needham, The GrandTitration(n. 34 above), p. 211.
51. Ibid.
52. Wen-yuan Qian, The Great Inertia: Scientific Stagnation in Tradi-
Justin Yifu Lin
291
tional China (London: Croom Helm, 1985);Kenneth Boulding, "The Great
Laws of Change,"in Evolution,Welfare,and Timein Economics, ed. Anthony
M. Tang, Fred M. Westfield,andJamesS. Worley(Lexington,Mass.: Lexington Books, 1976);Albert Feuerwerker,"Chinese Economic History in ComparativePerspective," in Heritage of China: ContemporaryPerspectives on
ChineseCivilization,ed. Paul S. Ropp (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: University
of CaliforniaPress, 1990).
53. Qian, p. 91.
54. Ping-ti Ho, The Ladder of Success in Imperial China: Aspects of
Social Mobility, 1368-1911 (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1962),
p. 42.
55. Eberhard(n. 12 above).
56. Ho, TheLadder of Success in ImperialChina, p. 51.
57. Ibid., pp. 198-200.
58. I want to emphasizethat I do not mean to belittle the importanceof
culturalpluralism,political tolerance, and so on, which are emphasized by
Qian and others, for the progress of moder science. However, what I am
discussing here is the scientific revolution at the crucial point of its birth,
which was Europe in the seventeenth century. From the historical evidence
cited by WilliamMonter, one can conclude that records of tolerance at that
time were not much betterin Europethan in China.It would be a fallacy here
to compare the Western system after the rise of modern science with the
premodernsystem in China.
59. Ho, The Ladderof Success in ImperialChina, p. 92.
60. This is best reflected by a famous poem by the Song emperor
Chen-Zong:
To enrich your family, no need to buy good land:
Books hold a thousandmeasuresof grain.
For an easy life, no need to build a mansion:
In books are found houses of gold.
Going out, be not vexed at absence of followers:
In books, carriagesand horse form a crowd.
Marrying,be not vexed by lack of a good go-between:
In books there are girls with faces of jade.
A boy who wants to become a somebody
Devotes himself to the classics, faces the window, and reads.
Quoted in Ichisada Miyazaki, China's ExaminationHell: The Civil Service
Examinationsof ImperialChina (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press,
1976),p. 17;publishedin Japanesein 1963and translatedinto Englishby John
Weatherhill.
61. Ibid.
62. The examinationsnot only enabled the emperorsto select the most
talentedpeople for the civil service but also instilleda moralsystem, through
Confucianteaching,which greatlyreducedthe costs of governing.Jones (n. 7
above) wonderedwhy Chinawas able to maintainunity despite wide regional
diversityand the backwardnessof premodernmeans of controland communication (p. 221). As suggested by Ray Huang, "The dynasty stood upon its
moralcharacter,which was its strength.Otherwiseit would never be able to
govern the people. The secret of administratingan enormousempire ... was
not to rely on law or power to regulateand punishbut to induce the younger
generationto venerate the old, the women to obey their menfolks, and the
illiterate to follow the examples set by the learned" (1587, a Year of No
Significance:TheMingDynasty in Decline [New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981], p. 22). These principlesof loyalty and filial piety were the
292
Economic Development and Cultural Change
essence of Confucianteaching. After the thirteenthcentury, a militarycoup
was almost unheardof in China, and Chinaproperwas never for long under
more than two administrations.The civil service examinationand the stress
on Confucianclassics probablywas the ingeniousinstitutionalinnovationthat
contributedto this phenomenon.
63. The comment by Sung Ying-Hsing(Song Yingxing), author of the
famous 1637technologybook T'ien-KungK'ai-Wu(A volume on the creations
of nature and man; Chinese technology in the seventeenth century) to his
book is the best footnote to this point. He wrote: "An ambitiousscholar will
undoubtedlytoss this book onto his desk and give it no furtherthought:it is
a workthat is in no way concernedwith the artof advancementin officialdom"
(trans. E-tu Zen Sun and Shiou-ChuanSun [University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1966]).
64. DuringSong times, mathematicsand astronomywere studied in the
state university (guo zi jian) and were requiredfor examinations.It is a pity
that in 1313 such subjects were droppedand the requiredreadingsofficially
limited to a set of Confuciantexts. As a result, by Ming times many of the
mathematicalwritingsof the Song were lost or had become incomprehensible.
65. Gustav Ranis, "Science and TechnologyPolicy: Lessons from Japan
and the East Asian NICs," in Science and Technology:Lessons for DevelopmentPolicy, ed. RobertE. Evenson and GustavRanis (Boulder,Colo.: Westview, 1990);David C. Mowery and Nathan Rosenberg, Technologyand the
Pursuitof Economic Growth(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress, 1989).
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