高水平陷阱——李约瑟之谜再考察

The High Equilibrium Trap——The Needham Paradox Revisited

本文从经济的角度重新考察了李约瑟之谜。通过一个动态一般均衡模型 ,本文证明 ,初始人口 资源禀赋的差异是造成中国和西欧在 1 8世纪之后的文明分岔的原因。这一理论和伊懋可的高水平陷阱学说是一致的。本文纠正了伊懋可学说中的逻辑错误 ,并发现了形成高水平陷阱的两个重要前提 ,即工业中存在规模经济以及人口增长符合马尔萨斯原理。

This paper studies the Needham Paradox in a dynamic general equilibrium model.It shows that the drastic difference between the population-resource endowments of China and Western Europe is the key factor that drives the civilization diversification between those two regions.This theory is consistent with Mark Elvin's ‘high equilibrium trap’theory.However,it improves on Elvin's theory by correcting its inconsistencies and identifying two key factors,scale economies in the industrial sector and Malthusian population growth.they are necessary to created the ‘high equilibrium trap’.