Doctoral Dissertation Research: Economic Development in the Liberal State

提出的博士论文研究是对银行体系结构与经济增长关系的比较历史研究。这项研究的基本理论是，如果银行家在向商业借款人放贷方面拥有共同的制度偏好，那么社会对经济资源的配置就会转向投资，而不是消费，从而导致经济加速发展。特别是，有人假设，英国和美国工业革命的推动力可以追溯到社会因素，而不是经济因素。通过分析苏格兰、英格兰和纽约18世纪银行档案中的贷款协议、商业信件和委员会会议纪要，将探索银行家的放贷做法与早期工业革命之间的直接关系。初步结果表明，银行体系结构的差异可能会解释高达25%的跨国增长率差异。然而，对于那些没有商业银行系统的国家来说，数据是缺乏的，其中大多数是世界上最贫穷的国家。这些国家的情况在某种程度上类似于现在工业化国家的工业化前条件，了解工业革命期间早期金融系统是如何首先促进发展的，将有助于了解今天贫穷国家通过银行改革实现经济发展的前景。

The proposed doctoral dissertation research is a comparative-historical study of the relationship between banking system structure and economic growth. The basic theory underlying the research is that if bankers possess a shared institutional preference for lending to commercial borrowers, then society's allocation of economic resources is shifted towards investment rather than consumption, leading to accelerated economic development. In particular, it is hypothesized that the impetus for the industrial revolution in Britain and America can be traced to social, rather than economic, factors. The direct relationship between bankers' lending practices and the early industrial revolution will be explored through the analysis of loan agreements, business correspondence, and committee meeting minutes from 18th century bank archives in Scotland, England and New York. Preliminary results suggest that differences in banking system structure may account for as much as 25% of the cross-national variance in growth rates. Data is lacking, however, for those countries that do not have commercial banking systems, among which are most of the poorest countries in the world. To the extent that conditions in those countries resemble pre-industrial conditions in the now-industrialized countries, an understanding of how early financial systems first fostered development during the Industrial Revolution will shed light on the prospects for economic development through banking reform in poor countries today.