A Study On Jia Shiyi's Financial Thoughts

Republic of China is an important period of the Chinese financial modernization. Besides those great thinkers and financiers, Jia Shiyi (1887-1965), a government officer as well as a scholar, also had made a contribution for the financial modernization.Jia Shiyi borned in Jiangsu Province. He returned from Japanese with his bachelor degree in 1911. Since 1912, he had been servicing in government as a financial officer for decades. 1927, he served as the leader of Taxes Department of the Nanjing Central Government, participating in the establishment of new financial regulations. Then, he was promoted to vice-Ministry of Finance in 1932 and transferred to the Director of Finance Department of Hubei Province in 1933, reforming the Hubei's financail system. Then , he was transferred successively to the Director of Finance of Jiangsu Provincie in 1943 and the Hubei, Hunan and Jiangxi financial district commissioner, responsible for receiving financial institutions in 1945. In addition, he was the professor of the Central University and the College of Economics. He had written some books about finance like the famous The Financial History of Republic of China. Those books preserved substantial historical financial facts and data.Jia shiyi's financial thoughts based on the traditional Chinese thoughts and the modern western financial theories and his plenty of financial experiences. He thought that the finance should depend on economy and aim at developing the national economy and improving citizen's livelihood. He supposed that centralization and decentralization should coexist in financial division system with five preconditions according to the situation of the country. As for the innovation in the tax system, he advocated recovering the tariff sovereignty, abolishing the oppressive taxes such as "lijin", and setting some new tax items under the principle of equitable such as income tax, inheritance tax. These were all for increasing revenue and easing financial resources. In fiscal expenditure issue, he insisted that "living within our means" principle. He alos suggested that it is significant to build system and cut redundant military cost while increasing spending in educational and industrial fields.Jia shiyi's financial thoughts was characterized by people-oriented and highlypracticable. But it was a little weak in theoretic part. Generally speaking, Jia shiyi's financial thoughts are compatible with the financial circumstances and the objective laws of financial development. It was the important part of the financial thoughts in Republic of China.