稻麦人所食 南北竟谁分:金融组织区域发展差异的历史起源

Rice Agricultural Legacy:The Historical Origin of Regional Disparity of Financial Development

本文使用历史上稻作农业经济带划分和水稻播种面积占比,衡量“南稻北麦”的作物种植格局,检验水稻种植方式对金融组织发展的影响。研究表明,稻作有利于促进民间金融发展,对正规金融发展的影响不显著。作用机制是稻农在农忙和修缮灌溉系统中的协作互济,有利于强化熟人社会关系,塑造利于民间金融的自我实施和第二方实施的交易规制和契约治理。本文验证了二元金融格局的文化起源,拓展了历史因素影响当代金融发展的研究。

This research examines the impact of rice farming on shaping the financial development, by employing the historical division of rice farming regions and proportion of rice planting area to measure rice planting pattern. The results show that prefectures with a legacy of cultivating rice tend to have more informal financial institutions, but the impact on formal financial development is not significant. The mechanism lies in that the cooperation of rice farmers in busy farming period and the coordination in the process of building irrigation system, leads to strengthen the social connection. This helps to form the transaction regulation and contract governance for self-implementation and second-party implementation. This paper verifies the cultural origin of dual financial structure and expands the literature on the long-term effects of historical factors on contemporary financial development.