Quantification and Fiscal Governance in China, 1400-1800

在此期间，我将完成一个题为《量化和财政治理在中国，1400-1800沿着》的图书项目，并将根据我的博士论文撰写一篇期刊文章。我的研究旨在为正在进行的关于经济史上财政国家兴起的争论做出贡献，对关于前现代中国财政能力的历史争论进行细微的调整（蒂利，1990;邦尼，1999;云-卡萨利拉和奥布莱恩，2012）。它还旨在提供丰富的和原始的洞察力的复杂性和制度的先决条件，财政会计，探讨如何以及在什么条件下，财政会计和预算编制，（或不能）为建设和加强国家能力作出贡献（Hacking，1990;波特，1995年）。国家治理需要了解被治理者，善政要求国家建立收集和利用数字形式知识的能力。在前现代和现代世界中，数字和计算实践都是一种工具，用来形象化和捕捉远离行政中心的世界。这种计算方法将物理实体转化为抽象的符号，将复杂的事物简化为可读的标记。为了探讨数字和计算方法在财政治理中的作用，我以近代中国为研究对象，追溯到世纪财政制度随着社会环境的变化而开始发展的时期。本研究发现，在国家统计核算体系中引入银作为标准计量单位，使中央政府能够衡量地方政府的收入和支出，干预地方政府的财政管理细节，建立地方预算制度，并通过严格的税收资源使用规定来预测和监督地方支出。面对战争和财政压力，地方预算数字成为行动的基础，使国家能够在中央和地方当局之间重新配置财政收入。当社会秩序最终在17世纪后期恢复时，中国政府建立了一个更加集中的财政体系。然而，此后国家对地方政府的投资过低，导致中国的财政治理在雄心勃勃的政策目标和地方政府面临的困境之间反复徘徊。我的研究的历史发现也希望与非学术受众接触，揭示计算在政策制定中的作用，并为统计条例办公室和监管机构提供有关统计和行政能力的历史见解。我对中国案例的研究提供了丰富的例子，可以增强我们对公共管理中数据收集和处理问题的理解，定位政府中数字的使用和滥用。这些历史经验对以数治国的体制和基础设施先决条件等更广泛的问题提供了启示。在会计系和风险与监管分析中心任职将为我提供一个独特的机会，进一步发展这种见解，并与相关政策制定者和监管机构进行沟通。

During this fellowship, I will complete a book project titled Quantification and Fiscal Governance in China, 1400-1800 along with a journal article that develops from my doctoral thesis. My research aims to contribute to the ongoing debate about the rise of the fiscal state in economic history, nuancing historical arguments about fiscal capacity in premodern China (Tilly, 1990; Bonney, 1999; Yun-Casalilla and O'Brien, 2012). It also aims to deliver rich and original insight into the complexities and institutional preconditions of fiscal accounting, exploring how and under what conditions fiscal accounting and budgeting can (or cannot) contribute to the building and enhancement of state capacity (Hacking, 1990; Porter, 1995).State governance requires knowledge of those to be governed, and good governance requires the state to build up the capacity to gather and utilise knowledge in the form of numerical representations. In both the premodern and modern world, numbers and calculative practices serve as an instrument to visualise and capture the world far removed from the centre of administration. Such calculative practices transform physical entities into abstract symbols; they simplify complex things into readable marks.To explore the roles of numbers and calculative practices in fiscal governance, I turn to early modern China as my case of study, tracing back to the fifteenth century when fiscal institutions began to develop alongside changes in social settings. This research finds that the introduction of silver tael as a standard numeraire in the state's statistical and accounting system enabled the central government in China to measure incomes and expenditures in local administration, to intervene in the details of fiscal management in local governments, to build up a local budget system, and to predict and monitor local spending with rigid regulations on the use of tax resources. In the face of warfare and fiscal pressure, local budget figures became the basis for actions, enabling the state to reconfigure fiscal revenues between the central and local authorities. When social order was eventually restored in the late seventeenth century, the Chinese state established a more centralised fiscal system. However, state investments in the local government became too low afterwards, causing fiscal governance in China to repeatedly linger between ambitious policy targets and difficult situations encountered by the local administration.The historical findings from my research also expect to engage with the non-academic audience, shed light on the role of calculations in policymaking, and provide historical insights on statistics and administrative capacity for the Office for Statistics Regulation and regulatory body. My research on the Chinese case provides abundant examples that can enhance our understanding of data collection and processing issues in public administrations, locating the use and abuse of numbers in government. These historical experiences provide implications on broader questions concerning institutional and infrastructural pre-conditions for governing by numbers. Being located in the Department of Accounting and Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation would provide me with a unique opportunity to develop such insights further and communicate them with relevant policymakers and regulators.