习俗与契约治理:清代山西土地典契定价的量化分析

Custom and Contract Governance: A Quantitative Analysis on the Pricing of Land Deeds from Shanxi Province in the Qing Dynasty

土地典契是一类在传统中国较为普遍且特别的地权交易形式,但在研究中对其性质和导致的投资效率却颇具争议。通过分析清华大学图书馆馆藏的312份典契原件,可以把典契定义为需转交资产并"以租代息"的抵押借贷合约,并从资产定价的角度提出两个典契定价假说:地租假说和利率假说。基于对典契条款的计量分析,证实了上述假说,这些量化分析结果表明典契性质定义的可操作性。同时,通过对典契原件和典契签订过程的考证,我们发现传统社会通过习俗约束与中人治理,大大降低了契约的不完全性导致的投资效率低下,提升了地权的交易效率。本研究除了史料的采用有所创新并加深了我们对金融契约的认识外,也对当前的土地流转和土地融资提供重要启示。

A land deed was a very common and special land contract in traditional China, but it has been criticized for its inefficiency by many scholars. Based on a collection of 312 original land deeds from Tsinghua University Library, we define the land deed as a mortgage loan contract which needs to transfer the land to the management of the creditor who uses its rent as interest. We put forward two hypotheses about the pricing of land deeds： rent rates hypothesis and interest rates hypothesis. Then we quantify the terms of the land deeds and verify our hypotheses. At the same time, we analyze the contracting process and enforcement of the land deeds by using the original land deeds and other historical materials, and find out that land deeds could greatly reduce the contract incompleteness and improve the efficiency of the land rights trading under customary constraints and middlemen＇ s governance. In addition to the innovative use of historical materials, this paper also contributes to deepening our understanding of financial contracts, and provides an important enlightenment to the current land transfer and land financing.