Theory Of Institutional Change. Case Study - China Ancient Yellow River Basin Water Rights System Changes

This article is a case study of the institutional change theoryThrough the analysis of the changes of water righs and institution the articledemonstrates that the institutional changes theory is consistent with our longhistorical facts and the theory makes reference fOr our contrictions of modermwater institutions. At first this article reviews the development and evolutionof the theory of institution as well as the theory of institutional change briefly.Then it discovers that the nature of institution and institutional change is theprofit inducement that leads to the institutional change. That is to say whenthere are some profitS outside the previous institution, the institution wouldchange. In order to make up for the shortcomings of the theory of InducedInstitutional change, North. presents his country theory ideology theory andpath independence theory Dr. Lin Yifu sets up his theory of EnforcedInstitutional change.The main content of this article is the discussion about our ancient historyof yellow kiver's changes of water righs and institution. Our ancient changesof water rights and institution have included four stages. From the pre-Qindays to Han Dynasty our country began to set up some laws and managementgovernments about water conservancy The main reason lead to this situationis the increase of population. The change of water's relative price and theestablishInent of feudalism provided many necessities and possibilities abouthow to set uP formal water rights and institution. From Tang Dynasty to YuanDynasty our water conservancy laws and institlltion, esPecially formalinstitution become flourishing and perfect. At the same time, it showed somecharacters of path independence. In the course of Ming and Qing days, non-formal institution become the main content of our water righs and institutionand there were deals of water righs in the Late stage of Qing Dynasty Thissituation can be ascribed to the increase of pOPulation Which can make theshortage of water worse, and the gradual intCnsification of the fOrce of LiZheng System. In the course of the RePublic of China days, the Watr lawswith modem significance arose. Furthermore there were' concepts about watrrighs in many official documents. That is because the political power hadchanged greatly and our country had transitioned from feudal auocraticsociety to democratic societyThe last part of this article has concluded the reasons of our changes ofwater rights and institution. Combined with our country's realities, it alsomakes some suggestions.