IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v68y2015i4p1107-1131.html

Economic restructuring and demographic growth: demystifying growth and development in Northern Song China, 960–1127

Author

Listed:
  • Kent Deng
  • Lucy Zheng

Abstract

type="main"> The Northern Song period (960–1127) has been recognized as one of the most important eras in China's economic and demographic history. This study investigates the key factors and mechanisms that led to economic restructuring and wealth generating to support a growing population. By revealing state-led changes in the economy, it challenges some commonly circulated interpretations of the remarkable economic development and population growth in Northern Song China.

Suggested Citation

  • Kent Deng & Lucy Zheng, 2015. "Economic restructuring and demographic growth: demystifying growth and development in Northern Song China, 960–1127," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(4), pages 1107-1131, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:68:y:2015:i:4:p:1107-1131
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ehr.12100
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Craig Loehle, 2007. "A 2000-Year Global Temperature Reconstruction Based on Non-Treering Proxies," Energy & Environment, , vol. 18(7), pages 1049-1058, December.
    2. Peter J. Taylor, 2012. "Extraordinary Cities: Early ‘City-ness’ and the Origins of Agriculture and States," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(3), pages 415-447, May.
    3. Broadberry, Stephen & Burhop, Carsten, 2010. "Real Wages and Labor Productivity in Britain and Germany, 1871–1938: A Unified Approach to the International Comparison of Living Standards," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 400-427, June.
    4. Guanglin William Liu, 2012. "Song China'S Water Transport Revisited: A Study Of The 1077 Commercial Tax Data," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 57-85, February.
    5. Broadberry, Stephen & Guan, Hanhui & Li, David Daokui, 2018. "China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: A Study in Historical National Accounting, 980–1850," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(4), pages 955-1000, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jiwei Qian & Tuan‐Hwee Sng, 2021. "The state in Chinese economic history," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(3), pages 359-395, November.
    2. Deng, Kent, 2015. "China’s population expansion and its causes during the Qing period, 1644–1911," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 64492, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Peter M. Solar, 2021. "China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: Further Concerns about the Historical GDP Estimates for China," Working Papers 0217, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moatsos, Michail & de Zwart, Pim, 2025. "Real wages around the world: Insights from linear programming and accounting for climate differences," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    2. Meng Wu, 2023. "Traditions and Innovations: The Rise and Decline of the Shanxi Piaohao (Banks) in the Context of Growing Sino-Foreign Economic Interaction, the 1840s to 1910s," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2306, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    3. repec:ehl:lserod:108563 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Stephen Broadberry & Kyoji Fukao & Tokihiko Settsu, 2025. "How Did Japan Catch-Up With the West? Some Implications or Recent Revisions to Japan’s Historical Growth Record," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _216, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Bassino, Jean-Pascal & Broadberry, Stephen & Fukao, Kyoji & Gupta, Bishnupriya & Takashima, Masanori, 2019. "Japan and the great divergence, 730–1874," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-22.
    6. Gregor Utz, 2018. "From Contrary to Complementary Models: Central Places and Gateways in the South-Eastern Provence (Arles and Marseille)," Land, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-16, August.
    7. Lee, Wang-Sheng & Li, Ben G., 2021. "Extreme weather and mortality: Evidence from two millennia of Chinese elites," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    8. Nuno Palma & André C. Silva, 2024. "Spending A Windfall," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 65(1), pages 283-313, February.
    9. Mandai, Yu & Nakabayashi, Masaki, 2018. "Stabilize the peasant economy: Governance of foreclosure by the shogunate," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 305-327.
    10. Ulrich Pfister & Jana Riedel & Martin Uebele, 2012. "Real Wages and the Origins of Modern Economic Growth in Germany, 16th to 19th Centuries," Working Papers 0017, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    11. Miao, Meng & Niu, Guanjie & Noe, Thomas, 2021. "Contracting without contracting institutions: The trusted assistant loan in 19th century China," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(3), pages 987-1007.
    12. Juan Carmona & Markus Lampe & Joan Rosés, 2017. "Housing affordability during the urban transition in Spain," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(2), pages 632-658, May.
    13. repec:ehl:lserod:60556 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. El-Shagi, Makram & Zhang, Lin, 2020. "Trade effects of silver price fluctuations in 19th-century China: A macro approach," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    15. Peter M. Solar, 2021. "China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: Further Concerns about the Historical GDP Estimates for China," Working Papers 0217, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    16. David Chilosi & Carlo Ciccarelli, 2023. "Italy in the Great Divergence: What Can We Learn from Engel’s Law?," CEIS Research Paper 562, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 18 Jul 2023.
    17. Derek Doran & Andrew Fox, 2016. "Operationalizing Central Place and Central Flow Theory With Mobile Phone Data," Annals of Data Science, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-24, March.
    18. Lisha Mengge, 2024. "Foreign trade and economic performance in China, 1860–1911," French Stata Users' Group Meetings 2024 14, Stata Users Group.
    19. repec:ehl:lserod:120277 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Ma, Debin, 2021. "Ideology and the Contours of Economic Changes in Modern China during 1850-1950," CEPR Discussion Papers 15835, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    21. Broadberry, Stephen & Fukao, Kyoji & Zammit, Nick, 2015. "How Did Japan Catch-up On The West? A Sectoral Analysis Of Anglo-Japanese Productivity Differences, 1885-2000," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 231, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    22. Guthmann, Rafael R., 2025. "On the measurement of growth over the long run," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), April.
    23. Emmanuel Bovari & Victor Court, 2019. "Energy, knowledge, and demo-economic development in the long run: a unified growth model," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01698755, HAL.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:68:y:2015:i:4:p:1107-1131. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.