Thematic Reading Lists
Due to numerous student inquiries regarding reading lists, we have decided to share our reading group list online for public reference.
Our curated ‘Thematic Reading Lists’ designed to explore specific research themes and areas of interest. These lists are ideal for students and enthusiasts looking to delve deeper into key topics within our research domains. Please note that these lists serve as introductory resources, offering a starting point for those new to the field. While not exhaustive, they provide a valuable foundation for further exploration and engagement with our research focus areas.
A General Introduction to Quantitative History
- Abramitzky, Ran. “Economics and the modern economic historian.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 75, no. 4, Dec. 2015, pp. 1240–1251, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050715001667.
- Lamoreaux, Naomi. “The future of economic history must be interdisciplinary.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 75, no. 4, Dec. 2015, pp. 1251–1257, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050715001679.
- Woolcock, Michael, et al. “How and why does history matter for development policy?” Journal of Development Studies, vol. 47, no. 1, Jan. 2011, pp. 70–96, https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2010.506913.
- Bolt, Jutta, and Jan Luiten Van Zanden. “The Maddison Project: Collaborative research on historical national accounts.” The Economic History Review, vol. 67, no. 3, 11 Mar. 2014, pp. 627–651, https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0289.12032.
- Broadberry, Stephen, et al. “China, Europe, and the Great Divergence: A Study in historical national accounting, 980–1850.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 78, no. 4, 19 Sept. 2018, pp. 955–1000, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050718000529.
- Crafts, Nicholas. “The Human Development Index, 1870–1999: Some revised estimates.” European Review of Economic History, vol. 6, no. 3, 1 Dec. 2002, pp. 395–405, https://doi.org/10.1017/s1361491602000187.
- Aslanian, Sebouh David, et al. “Ahr conversation how size matters: The question of scale in history.” The American Historical Review, vol. 118, no. 5, 25 Nov. 2013, pp. 1431–1472, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/118.5.1431.
- Humphries, Jane. “The lure of aggregates and the pitfalls of the Patriarchal Perspective: A critique of the high wage economy interpretation of the British Industrial Revolution.” The Economic History Review, vol. 66, no. 3, 9 Aug. 2012, pp. 693–714, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2012.00663.x.
- Morgan, Mary S. “Case studies: One observation or many? justification or discovery?” Philosophy of Science, vol. 79, no. 5, Dec. 2012, pp. 667–677, https://doi.org/10.1086/667848.
Society, Quantification, and Economy
- Hall, Peter A. “Policy paradigms, social learning, and the state: The case of economic policymaking in Britain.” Comparative Politics, vol. 25, no. 3, Apr. 1993, p. 275, https://doi.org/10.2307/422246.
- Scott, James C. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Yale University Press, 1998, pp. 12–52.
- Speich, Daniel. “The use of global abstractions: National Income Accounting in the period of Imperial decline.” Journal of Global History, vol. 6, no. 1, 23 Feb. 2011, pp. 7–28, https://doi.org/10.1017/s1740022811000027.
- Porter, Theodore M. “Making things quantitative.” Science in Context, vol. 7, no. 3, 1994, pp. 389–407, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0269889700001757.
- Miller, Peter. “Governing by numbers: Why calculative practices matter.” The Blackwell Cultural Economy Reader, Jan. 2004, pp. 379–396, https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470774274.ch10.
- Power, Michael. “Counting, control and calculation: Reflections on measuring and Management.” Human Relations, vol. 57, no. 6, June 2004, pp. 765–783, https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726704044955.
State Capacity
- Mayshar, Joram, et al. “The origin of the state: Land Productivity or appropriability?” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 130, no. 4, 1 Apr. 2022, pp. 1091–1144, https://doi.org/10.1086/718372.
- Allen, Robert C., et al. “The economic origins of Government.” American Economic Review, vol. 113, no. 10, 1 Oct. 2023, pp. 2507–2545, https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20201919.
- Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús, et al. “The fractured-land hypothesis.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 138, no. 2, 9 Jan. 2023, pp. 1173–1231, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad003.
- Becker, Sascha O., et al. “The Empire is dead, long live the Empire! long‐run persistence of trust and corruption in the bureaucracy.” The Economic Journal, vol. 126, no. 590, 26 July 2015, pp. 40–74, https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12220.
- Dell, Melissa, et al. “The historical state, local collective action, and Economic Development in Vietnam.” Econometrica, vol. 86, no. 6, 2018, pp. 2083–2121, https://doi.org/10.3982/ecta15122.
- Karaman, K. Kivanç and Sevket Pamuk. “Different paths to the modern state in Europe: The interaction between warfare, economic structure, and political regime.” American Political Science Review, vol. 107, no. 3, 17 July 2013, pp. 603–626, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055413000312.
- Gennaioli, Nicola, and Hans-Joachim Voth. “State capacity and military conflict.” The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 82, no. 4, 29 May 2015, pp. 1409–1448, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdv019.
Archaeology - Origin of Chinese Civilization
- Chang, Kwang-chih. “Chapter 5. The Chinese Interaction Sphere and the Foundation of Civilization.” The Archaeology of Ancient China, 4th ed., Yale University Press, 1986, pp. 234–294.
- Von Falkenhausen, Lothar. “The Regionalist Paradigm in Chinese Archaeology.” Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology, edited by Philip L. Kohl and Clare Fawcett, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
- Liu, Li. “State emergence in early China.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 38, no. 1, 1 Oct. 2009, pp. 217–232, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-091908-164513.
- Jaffe, Yitzchak. “Early State Formation in China.” Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, 2020, pp. 3473–3478, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30018-0_2506.
Culture, Religion, and Long-Term Consequences
- Cantoni, Davide. “Adopting a new religion: The case of Protestantism in 16th century Germany.” The Economic Journal, vol. 122, no. 560, 12 Apr. 2012, pp. 502–531, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2012.02495.x.
- Jedwab, Remi, et al. “The Economics of Missionary Expansion: Evidence from Africa and implications for development.” Journal of Economic Growth, vol. 27, no. 2, 7 Apr. 2022, pp. 149–192, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10887-022-09202-8.
- Valencia Caicedo, Felipe. “The mission: Human capital transmission, economic persistence, and culture in south america*.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 134, no. 1, 8 Oct. 2018, pp. 507–556, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjy024.
- Ma, Chicheng. “Knowledge diffusion and intellectual change: When Chinese literati met European jesuits.” The Journal of Economic History, vol. 81, no. 4, 14 Sept. 2021, pp. 1052–1097, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050721000413.
- Kung, James Kai-sing, and Chicheng Ma. “Can cultural norms reduce conflicts? Confucianism and peasant rebellions in qing China.” Journal of Development Economics, vol. 111, Nov. 2014, pp. 132–149, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2014.08.006.
- Leeson, Peter T., and Jacob W. Russ. “Witch trials.” The Economic Journal, vol. 128, no. 613, 16 Aug. 2017, pp. 2066–2105, https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12498.
Human Capital from a Quantitative Perspective
- Kelly, Morgan, et al. “The mechanics of the Industrial Revolution.” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 131, no. 1, 1 Jan. 2023, pp. 59–94, https://doi.org/10.1086/720890.
- Doepke, Matthias, and Fabrizio Zilibotti. “Occupational choice and the spirit of capitalism.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 123, no. 2, May 2008, pp. 747–793, https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2008.123.2.747.
- Lin, Justin Yifu. “The needham puzzle: Why the industrial revolution did not originate in China.” Economic Development and Cultural Change, vol. 43, no. 2, Jan. 1995, pp. 269–292, https://doi.org/10.1086/452150.
- Bai, Ying. “Farewell to confucianism: The modernizing effect of dismantling China’s Imperial Examination System.” Journal of Development Economics, vol. 141, Nov. 2019, p. 102382, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2019.102382.
- Squicciarini, Mara P., and Nico Voigtländer. “Human capital and industrialization: Evidence from the age of enlightenment *.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 130, no. 4, 6 July 2015, pp. 1825–1883, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv025.
- Dittmar, Jeremiah, and Skipper Seabold. “New Media and Competition: Printing and Europe’s Transformation after Gutenberg.” LSE Research Online, London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, 31 Jan. 2019, eprints.lse.ac.uk/102614/.
Should you have any questions or need further information regarding our thematic reading lists, please feel free to reach out to us at cqhinfo@hku.hk. We are here to assist you in exploring our curated resources and to provide any additional support you may require.
Bai, Y. & Kung, J. K. S. (2015). Diffusing Knowledge While Spreading God’s Message: Protestantism and Economic Prosperity in China, 1840–1920. Journal of the European Economic Association, 13(4), 669-698.
Besley, T. & Persson, T. (2011). Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Brandt, L., Ma, D., & Rawski, T. G. (2014). From Divergence to Convergence: Reevaluating the History Behind China’s Economic Boom. Journal of Economic Literature, 52(1), 45-123.
Chen, T., Kung, J. K. S., & Ma, C. (2020). Long Live Keju! The Persistent Effects of China’s Civil Examination System. The Economic Journal, 130(631), 2030-2064.
Chen, Z., Ma, C., & Sinclair, A. (2021). Banking on the Confucian Clan: Why China Developed Financial Markets so Late, The Economic Journal, 132(644), 1378–1413.
Chen, Z., Peng, K., & Zhu, L. (2017). Social-Economic Change and Its Impact on Violence: Homicide History of Qing China. Explorations in Economic History, 63, 8-25.
Diamond, J. M. (1997). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Dikötter, F. (2010). Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–62. London; New York: Bloomsbury.
Elias, N. (2000). The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations (Rev. ed.). Malden, MA; Oxford; Victoria: Blackwell Publishing.
Hughes, R. et al. (2018). Quantifying Land Use in Past Societies from Cultural Practice and Archaeological Data. Land (Basel), 7(1), 9.
Kohler, T. A. et al. (2017). Greater Post-Neolithic Wealth Disparities in Eurasia than in North America and Mesoamerica. Nature, 551(7682), 619-622.
La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F., & Shleifer, A. (2008). The Economic Consequences of Legal Origins. Journal of Economic Literature, 46(2), 285-332.
Lang, O. (1946). Chinese Family and Society. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Liu, G. (2015). The Chinese Market Economy, 1000–1500. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Ma, D. & Rubin, J. (2019). The Paradox of Power: Principal-Agent Problems and Administrative Capacity in Imperial China (and Other Absolutist Regimes). Journal of Comparative Economics, 47(2), 277-294.
Maddison, A. (2001). The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (Development Centre Studies). Paris: OECD Publishing.
Malthus, T. R. & Stimson, S. C. (2018). An Essay on the Principle of Population: The 1803 Edition. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Morrison, K.D. et al. (2021). Mapping Past Human Land Use Using Archaeological Data: A New Classification for Global Land Use Synthesis and Data Harmonization. PloS one, 16(4), p.e0246662.
North, D. C., Wallis, J. J., & Weingast, B. R. (2009). Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Nunn, N. (2012). Culture and the Historical Process. Economic History of Developing Regions, 27(1-1), S108-126.
Phelps, L. N. & Kaplan, J. O. (2017). Land Use for Animal Production in Global Change Studies: Defining and Characterizing a Framework. Global Change Biology, 23(11), 4457-4471.
Scott, J. C. (2017). Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sng, T. H. (2014). Size and Dynastic Decline: The Principal-Agent Problem in Late Imperial China, 1700–1850. Explorations in Economic History, 54, 107-127.
Spence, J. D. (1990). The Search for Modern China (1st ed.). New York: Norton.
Wang, G. (2003). The Nanhai Trade: Early Chinese Trade in the South China Sea (2nd ed.). Singapore: Eastern Universities Press.
Weber, M. (1951). The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism. Glencoe: Free Press.