Rice vs.Wheat:How Rice Farming Shaped Informal Finance in China

China’s financial system is characterized by the coexistence of both formal and informal finance,and informal finance appears to be more prevalent in the south of the country compared to the north.In this paper,we use the historical demarcation of rice-farming regions and the percentage area of rice sown to ascertain the regional distribution of rice farming in the south and wheat farming in the north in order to analyze the role of rice farming in the evolution of different types of financial institutions in China.We find that rice cultivation has a positive effect on informal financial development,though its impact on formal finance is insignificant.Unlike wheat farming,rice cultivation requires farmers to collaborate during busy farming seasons and necessitates the construction of irrigation systems.Such collaboration helped enhance an acquaintance society,in which both parties to transactions enforced the rules and contract terms of their own initiative,paving the way for informal finance.This paper not only demonstrates the cultural roots of the regional financial disparities in China but also expands the research on the ways in which farming practices from the past have shaped the development of China’s present financial markets.

Reading across Workplace Learning Research to Build Dialogue

The field of workplace learning scholarship in Western countries is reviewed. First, the emergence of workplace learning scholarship is discussed historically for its relation to the emergence and ongoing development of capitalism beginning from early thought on markets and productivity, 20th century scientific management, industrialism and post-industrialism theses, and finally contemporary conceptual and disciplinary expansion and the conditions of globalization under late capitalism. Following this, six thematic clusters of research are discussed in relation to key scholars, their primary contributions and the ways that each can, potentially, inform those working in other areas of workplace learning scholarship. These thematic clusters include the following: i. cognition, expertise, and the individual;ii. micro-interaction, cognition, and communication;iii. mediated practice and participation;iv. meaning, identity, and organization life;v. authority, conflict, and control;and vi. competitiveness and knowledge management. It is concluded that no single thematic cluster has established predominance, and that there is a strong tendency toward isolation or balkanization of research interests (thematically, nationally, linguistically, etc.) despite a variety of parallel and/or mutually informing interests.