Spring Seminar Series: Institutional Genes: Confucianism vs. Christianity with Prof. Chenggang Xu

Tuesday, May 25, 2021 | 11:00am-12:15 pm Pacific Time

Institutional Genes: Confucianism vs. Christianity

This talk was based on a chapter of my ongoing book project titled “Institutional Genes: A Comparative Analysis of Origins of China’s Institutions.” Confucianism / Imperial-Exam-System is one of three what I called institutional genes of China's institutions. As a comparison, Christianity is an institutional gene for other institutions, including constitutional democracy (in the West) on the one hand and totalitarianism (in the Soviet Union), which is implanted into China on the other hand.  In this talk, I’ll explain how Confucianism/  Imperial-Exam-System is created and evolved, and why it is an institutional gene that affects today’s institutions in China.   

Watch the Recorded Event:

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About the Speaker

Chenggang Xu is Visiting Professor at Finance Department, Imperial College London. He is one of the first recipients (joint with Yingyi Qian) of China Economics Prize for contributions in understanding government and enterprise incentive mechanisms for the transition economy of China. 

Dr Xu received his PhD in Economics from Harvard in 1991. He is currently a board member of the Ronald Coase Institute (RCI) and a research fellow of the CEPR. He has previously taught at the London School of Economics (1991-2009) as a Reader, at the University of Hong Kong (2009-2016) as Chung Hon-Dak Professor in Economic Development and as Quoin Professor in Economic Development (2008-2016), and as Special-Term Visiting Professor at Tshinghua University (2002-). He has also taught and worked at Harvard (1992-2002), the IMF (1997-1999) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1982-1992). He was the President of the Asian Law and Economics Association (2010-2012) and World-Class University Professor at Seoul National University (2009-2013). He won the Sun Yefang Economics Prize in 2013. In 2016, he was the joint winner of the China Economics Prize.

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Seminar Series Moderators:

Scott Rozelle holds the Helen Farnsworth Endowed Professorship at Stanford University and is Senior Fellow in the Food Security and Environment Program and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI) for International Studies. For the past 30 years, he has worked on the economics of poverty reduction. Currently, his work on poverty has its full focus on human capital, including issues of rural health, nutrition and education. For the past 20 year, Rozelle has been the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). In recent years Rozelle spends most of his time co-directing the Rural Education Action Project (REAP). In recognition of this work, Dr. Rozelle has received numerous honors and awards. Among them, he became a Yangtse Scholar (Changjiang Xuezhe) in Renmin University of China in 2008. In 2008 he also was awarded the Friendship Award by Premiere Wen Jiabao, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a foreigner. 

Hongbin Li is the James Liang Director of the China Program at the Stanford King Center on Global Development, and a Senior Fellow of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Hongbin obtained his Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University in 2001 and joined the economics department of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), where he became full professor in 2007. He was also one of the two founding directors of the Institute of Economics and Finance at the CUHK. He taught at Tsinghua University in Beijing 2007-2016 and was C.V. Starr Chair Professor of Economics in the School of Economics and Management. He founded the Chinese College Student Survey (CCSS) in 2009 and the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES) in 2014.

Hongbin’s research has been focused on the transition and development of the Chinese economy, and the evidence-based research results have been both widely covered by media outlets and well read by policy makers around the world. He is currently the co-editor of the Journal of Comparative Economics.