TITLE:
On the Qing Tributary System from the Per-spective of Transaction Cost
AUTHORS:
Huanhuan Yu
KEYWORDS:
Transaction Cost, Tributary System, Institutional Cost, Path Dependence, Path Lock
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.6 No.2,
April
22,
2016
ABSTRACT: The Qing tributary system, which is centered on China, has been regarded
as a universally acknowledged and distinguished regional order in pre-modern
East Asian. This system is made up of a series of informal, formal institutions
and the system of governance. Such system can get a good explanation by using
the transaction cost theory of new institutional economics. It is obvious that
the available literature about the tributary system rarely involves transaction
cost theory; so this paper tries to analyze the Qing tributary system from this
perspective and break the traditional analytical paradigm of international
relations scholars, and then tries to build and sum up the two explainable models
about the system of rising and recession.