| Pawnbroking is the financial industry that mortgages or pledged property.The pawnshop industry in China originated from the temples of the Southern and Northern Dynasties.It has a history of more than 1600 years.Scholars generally believe that since the origin of the Northern and Southern Dynasties,through the dynasties of the Tang Dynasty,the Song Dynasty,and the Yuan Dynasty,until the Ming Dynasty,the pawn-shop industry in China developed slowly.After entering the Ming Dynasty,the pawn industry developed rapidly,reaching its peak in the middle and early Qing Dynasty.The pawn industry rapidly declined in the late Qing Dynasty.Some studies have been carried out in depth on the historical facts of the pawnshop industry in China,the development context has been comprehensively combed out,the management has been summarized and analyzed,and many studies have been conducted on the role of the pawnshop industry in economic development.However,the deep reasons for the development of China's pawn industry and internal laws are less revealed.Why did China's pawnbroking industry not flourish until the Ming Dynasty experienced more than 900 years after the origin of the Northern and Southern Dynasties? Why did it quickly decline in the late Qing Dynasty,after reaching its peak in the middle and early Qing Dynasty?What is the basic reason? Is there any internal law? This paper chooses to focus on the development history of 540 years in the Ming and Qing Dynasties from the weak to the prosperous,from the prosperity to the peak,from the peak to the decline.The purpose is to reveal the basic reason of the rise and fall of the pawnshop industry in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,the internal law and the evolutionary mechanism,to explain the deep-seated reasons for the development of the pawnshop in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and the whole 1600 years.At the same time,also strive to draw some enlightenment for the development of the contemporary economy.Studying the development process of China's pawnshop industry,it was found that the pawnshop industry in China was at a low level for more than 900 years before the Ming and Qing Dynasties,and it was also a period when the pawnbroking institution was relatively elementary and the institution changed slowly.The period when the pawnshop industry in the Ming and Qing dynasties experienced dramatic changes was the stage ofmajor changes in the pawn institution.This is highly consistent with North's theory of institutional changes.North pointed out that institution determines the economic performance,the institutional changes promote the economic performance changes,and the market competition is the driving force of the institutional changes.North believes that market competition can promote economic entities to carry out institutional changes,so that inefficient institutions are gradually replaced by efficient institutions,transaction costs can be reduced,and economic performance can be improved.The weaker the competition in the market,the slower the institution changes,the lower the institution efficiency,and the slower the economic performance improves.On the contrary,the more intense market competition,the faster the institution changes,the higher the institution efficiency,the more significant the improvement of economic performance.The market competition promotes the institutional change from the institutional margin and proceeds step by step.In this process,the country's strength,ideology and path dependence have an important influence.These theories are highly applicable to the study of the pawnshop industry in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.For this reason,this paper regards the theory of market competition and institutional change as the theoretical basis of research.The paper pays attention to the following three points during the research process.(1)Putting the Ming and Qing Dynasties pawn industry into the economic and social background of the time,and in-depth study of the impact of loan resource scarcity,government power,economic development,currency form,cultural tradition and other factors on pawn market competition,considering not only positive factors incentives to competition,but also consider the inhibition of competition by negative factors.(2)Put the Ming and Qing Dynasties pawn industry into the history of the development of pawn industry in modern and ancient China to analyze,Contact previous and subsequent situations,compare similarities and differences,not only explain the prosperity of the pawnshop industry caused by the fierce market competition in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,but also explain why the pawnshop industry developed slowly in the 900 years before Ming Dynasty.(3)Put the Ming and Qing Dynasties pawnshop industry into the background of the evolution of the entire financial system,revealing that as an important form of the ancient Chinese financial industry,the decline of the pawnshop industry inthe late Qing Dynasty is the result of fierce competition with the credit industry such as the banking industry.The paper believes that(1)Before the Ming and Qing Dynasties,the market competition of pawnshops was weakened by various suppression and interference.Although the basic process of pawn was formed through the evolution of more than 900 years,the specific operation and management system of pawnshops was still quite imperfect,and transaction costs remained high.Pawn efficiency has been at a low level for a long time,and the pawn industry has developed slowly.(2)During the Ming Dynasty,the factors hindering the competition in the pawnshop market were eliminated.Under the leadership of the business pawn,the pawnshops launched fierce and full free competition,which promoted the establishment of a series of pawn management systems and made the pawn transaction costs significantly reduced,pawn efficiency increased significantly.So pawnshop industry embarked on a rapid development path.(3)In the early Qing Dynasty,under the financial support of the imperial court's "Interests Silver" system,pawnshops were opened from the royal family to the local military and political bureaucrats at all levels,the official pawnshop was gradually monopolized,and the pawnshop industry expanded rapidly.However,due to the monopoly,pawn efficiency declined.Laid foundation for the withdrawal of the "Interests Silver" system and the decline of official pawn pawns in the mid-Qing Dynasty.(4)In the middle of the Qing Dynasty,the withdrawal of the "Interests Silver" system led to the closure of many official pawn pawns,the monopoly situation of the official pawn was broken,and the private pawn ushered in the revival opportunity.The cooperation between the official and the private pawn became the characteristic of the pawnshop in this period.Cooperative competition has promoted changes in pawn financing methods and business methods.During the period when the scale of the pawn industry was reduced,the efficiency of the pawn was embarked on the road of connotative development.(5)At the end of the Qing Dynasty,the rise of credit financial institutions such as Qianzhuang,PiaoHao,and modern bank,the pawn industry was obviously at a disadvantage in terms of cost and efficiency.Although the pawn industry adopted many measures in innovation and improvement of institutions to reduce costs and improve efficiency.The inherent disadvantages of their own traitshave failed to withstand the competition in the credit finance industry and have declined rapidly.The significance of this paper(1)In terms of theory,it further deepens the understanding of the process of market competition to promote institutional changes and promote economic performance.Douglass North and other institutional economists believe that institutional change is a process of survival of the fittest in the process of market competition.In this process,inefficient systems will gradually be eliminated,and efficient systems will be produced.Based on North's theory of institutional change,the thesis summarizes this idea and clearly reveals the mechanism of market competition to promote institutional change and economic performance change,and applies it to empirical analysis.At the same time,the paper believes that market competition promotes institutional change and efficiency improvement is a nonlinear tortuous process.For example,in the early Qing Dynasty,the monopolistic competition of the pawnshop industry,in which the government forces intervened,was fierce,but it led to a decline in institutional efficiency.(2)In terms of reality,On the one hand,it not only deeply explores and reveals the basic reasons of the rise and fall of the pawnshop industry during the Ming and Qing Dynasties,even in whole ancient China,but also analyzes the different connotations of "prosperity" during the prosperous period of the Ming and Qing Dynasties.For example,the rapid expansion of the scale of pawnshops promoted by the government in the early Qing Dynasty led to a decline in efficiency,leading to the unsustainable development of the pawnshop industry.On the other hand,through the study of the rise and fall of the pawnshop in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,some enlightenment for the current economic development can also be obtained,such as:paying attention to the role of market competition from the perspective of institutions and efficiency,and the government should create conditions and reduce intervention for market competition,highly emphasize on heterogeneous competition,and so on. |
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