题目：The Long-Term Effects of Christian Activities in China before 1920
主讲人：颜色（北京大学光华管理学院应用经济系讲师）
时间：2012年5月18日（周五）中午12:30-14:00
地点：北京大学经济学院203室
主讲人介绍：北京大学光华管理学院应用经济系讲师。北京大学经济学院国际经济系学士，北京大学经济学院经济史方向硕士，美国加州大学洛杉矶分校(UCLA)经济学博士。研究方向：经济史，宏观经济学，经济增长与发展，中国经济。在国内外核心期刊，如Explorations in Economic History、《经济研究》、《经济学季刊》等发表多篇论文，并有论文在国际权威期刊如International Economic Review、Journal of Development Economics等修改再审。2009年获得第十五届世界经济史大会最佳博士论文奖，是荣获此殊荣的第一位中国学者。研究课题获得美国自然科学基金、中国国家社科基金、中国教育部人文社科基金资助。主持“国家重修清史·对外贸易志”项目。
内容提要：Does culture, and in particular religion, exert an independent causal effect on long-termeconomic performance, or is it merely a reflection of the latter? We explore this issue bystudying a quasi-natural experiment of Christian activities in China between 1840 and 1920.Christianity was legalized in the mid eighteenth century in China, and spread rapidly butunevenly since then. Using county-level data sets of Christian activities in 1920 andsocioeconomic indicators in 2000, we find a robust positive relationship between the intensityof Christian activities and today’s performances. To better understand if the relationship iscausal, we explore historical documents and use both historical natural disasters and distancesfrom the counties to nearest treaty ports as instrument variables. Together the evidencesuggests that increased Christian activities had a positive effect on long-term socioeconomicdevelopment. We further examine the transmission channels between history and today, andfind that Christian activities affected today’s performances by human capital, foreign directinvestment and other unobserved mechanisms.
