Quantification and Fiscal Governance in China, 1400-1800

在此期间，我将完成一个题为《中国的量化与财政治理》的图书项目，同时还将完成一篇由我的博士论文发展而来的期刊文章。我的研究旨在为经济史上正在进行的关于财政国家崛起的辩论做出贡献，细微地区分前现代中国(Tilly，1990；Bonney，1999；Yun-Casalilla and O‘Brien，2012)关于财政能力的历史争论。它还旨在提供对财政会计的复杂性和制度前提条件的丰富和原创性的见解，探索财政会计和预算如何以及在什么条件下可以(或在什么条件下)为国家能力的建设和增强做出贡献(Hking，1990；Porter，1995)。国家治理需要对那些被治理的人的知识，而良好的治理需要国家建立以数字表示形式收集和利用知识的能力。在前现代和现代世界，数字和计算实践都是一种工具，用来可视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；它们将复杂的事物简化为可读的标记。为了探索数字和计算方法在财政治理中的作用，我转向早期现代中国作为我的研究案例，可以追溯到15世纪，当时财政机构开始随着社会环境的变化而发展。这项研究发现，在国家统计和会计制度中引入银两作为标准数字，使中国领导的中央政府能够衡量地方行政收入和支出，干预地方政府财政管理的细节，建立地方预算制度，并以严格的税源使用规定预测和监测地方支出。面对战争和财政压力，地方预算数字成为行动的基础，使国家能够重新配置中央和地方之间的财政收入。17世纪末，当社会秩序最终得到恢复时，中国政府建立了更为集中的财政体制。然而，后来国家对地方政府的投资变得太低，导致中国的财政治理一再在雄心勃勃的政策目标和地方政府遇到的困难之间徘徊。我的研究历史发现也有望与非学术受众接触，阐明计算在政策制定中的作用，并为统计办公室和监管机构提供关于统计和行政能力的历史见解。我对中国案例的研究提供了大量的例子，可以加深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。这些历史经验对有关数字执政的体制和基础设施前提条件的更广泛问题产生了影响。设在会计部和风险与监管分析和监管中心，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交流。

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.