An Economic Analysis On Merchant Guilds During The Ming And Qing Dynasty

Ming and Qing dynasty is an extremely important and the last period during feudalsociety, which went through drastic economic and social changes and collision of cultureand values. Merchant guild, as one of the intermediate organizations, establishes acommunication between government and market and between market and firm, whichexerts a profound influence over merchants, government and the whole society. Theintermediate organization, such as trade association and the chamber of commerce, ishelpful for the development of modern market economy. After the entry to the WTO,along with the further adjustment to the economic structure, the coordination of interestsand relations has become an important topic.The research on merchant guild is mainly from historical view and focuses on thecharacter of fellow organization or business league. Furthermore, scholars take theresearch on merchant guild as one part of the whole research on history of Ming andQing dynasty, more than an independent and important research. Some scholars adopteconomic methods, but are confined to descriptive analysis, unable to form soundtheoretical framework to explain the mechanism, effect on merchants group and relationbetween merchant guild and government.This essay adopts the method of the combination of induction and deduction,normative and positive analysis, historical and logistic analysis and organizational andinstitutional method. The conclusions are as follows: through the study of merchant guild,merchant guild is defined as intermediate organization between government and marketand between market and firm from the angle of resources allocation model; merchantguild achieves sound internal governance through opera performance and divine worship;merchant guild is an institutional choice of government-merchant game during Ming andQing dynasty and represents merchant’s high dependency on crony capital or governmentand the government controls and utilizes merchants by merchant guild; the change oforganizational form from merchant guild to association represents induced institutionalchange, while that from association to the chamber of commerce represents imposedinstitutional change. The structure and main content of this essay is as follows:Chapter Ⅰ, namely introductory theory, introduces the research status home andabroad of guild and merchant guild and research ideas and methods and points outinnovation points and insufficiency; Chapter Ⅱ defines merchant guild, introduces therise and territorial characteristics of merchant guilds and discusses the background of theeconomy and society and that of thinking and policy. Chapter Ⅲ discusses the nature ofmerchant guild as intermediate organization, analyzes the forming mechanism, points outthe difference between merchant guild and other organizations and the function ofmerchant guild. Chapter Ⅳ analyzes the basic composition of organization, discusses theinternal governance of merchant guild by use of governance theory and further points outthe internal motivation problems of merchant guild. Chapter Ⅴ utilizes game theory toconstitute government-merchant game model based on merchant guild and discusses thenature and dynamic evolution of government-merchant relations. Chapter Ⅵ discussesthe organizational evolution from merchant guild to association and the chamber ofcommerce based on induced and imposed institutional change. Chapter Ⅶ gives the finalconclusions and puts forward policy enlightenment.