摘要
由于资料、数据的关系，学界对中国在20世纪初期的经济绩效进行了较多的探讨。以黄宗智的“过密化”理论和罗斯基的“增长论”为其两端，展开了激烈的争论。本文在总结国内外相关文献的基础上，首先通过较详实的历史统计资料，对我国1914-1936年的经济发展情况给出了一个简明的支持黄宗智的判断。然后，在微观层次上，进一步讨论了黄宗智总结的过密化现象背后的行为逻辑。本文不同意黄宗智的人口压力和生存压力的解释，认为过密化现象产生的原因中最重要的两点：一是棉花和粮食的相对价格的外生变化，它是小农由种粮向种棉转变的主要原因；二是种棉过程中内生的劳动力的增加，它是家庭农场和经营农场分化的主要原因。
Economists and historians have been interested in Republican China＇s economic performance for decades. Seeing a trend of increasing commercialization and intensification of economic activities within the realm of overall stagnation of per capita income, Philip Huang believes that China experienced involution in that time period. This paper provides an alternative explanation to Huang＇s theory of involution. We find that the phenomena believed by Huang as evidence for involution were results of peasants＇ rational choices, not “involution” under living stress. The exogenous change of the relative price between cotton and grain led more peasants to produce cotton instead of grain. In the meantime, population increased en- dogenously as a response to the shift from grain to cotton production. This explains why small farms and large farms produced different crops.
出处
《经济学（季刊）》
2008年第1期415-430,共16页
China Economic Quarterly
