科举与科技:基于人力资本的视角

Keju,Science and Technology:A Human Capital-Based Perspective

传统观点认为,科举制度阻碍了中国历史上的科技发展,本文则发现了不同的结果。首先,基于580-1915年历史面板数据,本文利用固定效应面板模型分析了科举对古代科技的影响,发现科举登科人数与科技人物数量存在显著正相关关系。为处理内生性问题,本文采用了距科举考试地点的距离与各时段科举登科总人数的交乘项作为工具变量,结果也证实了上述结论,这说明人力资本积累具有较强的正外部性。其次,本文进一步分析了科举影响科技人才数量的主要途径,发现科举制显著促进了科举出身的科技人物的产生,同时科举人才积累对于文化、教育与家族传承都有显著作用。最后,本文尝试分析了明清时期科举对科技人才的影响,发现这一时期科举对科技的正向影响有所削弱,这可能是来源于考试内容与考试方式的僵化,同时科技发展的学科结构与创新结构也阻碍了近代的科技进步,这些都表明严重的人力资本错配会对科技人才产生阻碍作用.

The traditional view of the imperial examination(Keju)system holds that it hindered the development of science and technology throughout China's history.However,this paper suggests a strikingly different result.First,based on historical panel data from between 580 and 1915,it empirically analyses the influence of the Keju system on ancient science and technology using the fixed-effects(FE)panel model,and shows that there is a significant positive correlation between the number of successful Keju candidates and the number of emerging scientific and technological figures.To address endogeneity issues,it adopts the interaction term of the distance between each region and the Keju locations,and the total number of successful Keju candidates in each period as an instrumental variable,and it conducts a two-stage least squares(IV-2SLS)estimate.The results also confirm previous conclusions,indicating that human capital accumulation shows a strong positive externality.Second,it analyses in depth the main forms of influence of the Keju system and finds that it significantly promotes the emergence of scientific and technological figures,and that the accumulation of emerging talent exerts a significant impact on culture,education and family inheritance.Finally,it attempts to analyse the influence of the Keju system on the scientific and technological talent of the Ming and Qing dynasties,and finds that it weakened during this period,which may have been mainly due to the increasing rigidity of the examination content and methodology.At the same time,it indicates that the disciplinary and innovative structure of scientific and technological development hindered modern scientific and technological progress.All this suggests that a serious mismatch in human capital can clearlyhavea hamperingeffect.