Historical Per Capita Cultivated Land Area, Opening Of Trading Ports, And The Rise And Fall Of Entrepreneurial Activitie

The enormous potential of entrepreneurial activity is of particular importance to China’s economy.It is an important force for driving economic growth,promoting regional development,creating jobs,and stimulating innovation in the current development environment of resuming production in the fight against the epidemic.However,the distribution of entrepreneurial activity varies dramatically across Chinese cities,and this variation is highly historically rooted.Business activities in Suzhou,Zhejiang,and Guangdong have been active since the Ming and Qing dynasties,and have survived many wars and political movements,and have quickly taken on new life after the reform and opening.Why has the economic activity represented by entrepreneurship been unevenly distributed among cities for a long time? What are the deep-seated determinants of economic activity?“History is the root of reality”.In other words,the current economic development of the world has its historical roots(Nunn,2020).The “history” here depends both on the historical natural conditions and on the impact of historical events.Among them,natural conditions are the basis for determining economic development and maintaining steady state,while short-lived historical event shocks may shift economic development from one steady state to another,thus having a significant and lasting impact on economic development(Minniti,2005).Thus,his paper focuses on two aspects of historical elements that are of interest in the current study,that is,the impact of natural conditions and the shocks of historical events.Based on China’s long agricultural history and factor endowment theory,this paper argues that historically unfavorable agricultural production conditions may be considered as one of the “origins” of China’s historical entrepreneurial activities.The historical scarcity of arable land per capita contributed to the rise of commercial activities in terms of “man-land ratio”,causing some regions to be the first to shift from an agricultural society to an agribusiness society and to diverge from other regions in terms of development paths,and to a large extent sustaining this divergence to the present.At the same time,drawing on the theoretical basis of natural experiments,the impact of historical events caused entrepreneurial activities to shift from one steady state to another.Among them,the opening of historical ports,as the beginning of modern history,had a profound impact on the distribution pattern of entrepreneurial activity.The above hypotheses,although some studies have been proposed,still lack systematic theoretical analysis and empirical tests.Based on this,this paper takes entrepreneurship as an economic activity as an entry point for research,analyzes the long-term shaping role of historical agriculturally natural factors represented by historical arable land per capita on Chinese entrepreneurial activities,and the long-term influence and impact of historical events represented by the opening of historical ports on its development,and constructs historical factors(including historical natural factors and historical events)-Historical economic activities-Cultural and social development-Contemporary economic activities,with a view to contributing to relevant research and pointing out directions for institutional decision-making.The paper lands on the long-term influence of historical factors on contemporary entrepreneurial activity.However,due to the longtime span from the late Qing Dynasty to contemporary times,in order to complete the logical chain and enhance the credibility of the results,this paper also introduces the influence of historical factors on modern entrepreneurial activities to demonstrate that historical factors can not only affect entrepreneurial activities in the short term,but also affect contemporary entrepreneurial activities in the long run.Using data related to the arable land per capita in the Qing Dynasty,the opening of historical ports in the modern era,and modern and contemporary entrepreneurial activities,this paper focuses on the long-term impact of historical factors on entrepreneurial activities in modern and contemporary cities.Based on the combing of domestic and foreign studies and the history of entrepreneurship development in China,this paper conducts a mechanism analysis and empirical tests on the following key issues,and obtains the following conclusions.First,what are the “origins” of the differences in the distribution of entrepreneurial activity in China? What is the relationship between the natural elements of historical agriculture and contemporary entrepreneurial activity? The results of this study show that historical arable land per capita is a fundamental factor in differences in the distribution of entrepreneurship in China.Within the traditional farming area,the more unfavorable agricultural production conditions in history were conducive to the development of local entrepreneurial activities in the long-run,proving the theoretical hypothesis that “poverty is the key to change”.Meanwhile,both endogeneity analysis using the instrumental variables of terrain ruggedness and the Southern Song war migration and multidimensional robustness tests suggest that the effect of historical arable land per capita on entrepreneurial activity is not only long term sustainable but also robust.Second,how have a series of major historical events in the modern era(e.g.,the opening of historical ports)influenced contemporary entrepreneurial activity? Did they have an impact on these impacts? The results of this study suggest that the opening of historical ports was a turning point in the China’s history of involvement in modernization and globalization.It influenced the continuity of historical commercial activity,causing entrepreneurial activity to persist in some areas and to lag behind in others.Cities with historical ports have higher rates of modern and contemporary startups than cities without historical ports.Also,endogeneity analysis,spillover analysis and robustness test are conducted in this paper.In addition,this paper finds that the historical arable land per capita brought people to leave the land and engage in commercial activities due to the pressure of life,and the seeds of industrialization and commercial spirit were brought to people by the opening of historical ports are mutually substitutive.The analyses of “Joseph Lee’s dilemma”,“historical curse” and “reversal of fortune” have all been verified.Third,through what mechanisms do historical factors influence entrepreneurial activity? The findings suggest that historical factors have influenced modern and contemporary entrepreneurial activities through genetic traits-personality,acquired cultivated traits-human capital and social traits-entrepreneurial culture.(1)The scarcity of arable land per capita has historically stimulated the “difficult” personality of local people,i.e.,a special personality of disobedience to rulers and risk-taking.Through genetic inheritance and shaping,it has formed an entrepreneurial personality conducive to entrepreneurship in modern society,and the opening of historical ports has also promoted the entrepreneurial personality of local people in modern and contemporary society.(2)The opening of the first five ports greatly contributed to the increase in the number of local candidates for the imperial examinations,while traditional agricultural conditions significantly influenced the level of human capital in the last decade of the imperial examination system.Modern human capital was mainly influenced by the opening of historical ports.In contemporary society,the persistence of both traditional type of human capital influenced by historical arable land per capita and new type of human capital brought by the opening of historical ports has been reflected.(3)The smaller the historical arable land per capita of the immigrant’s place of origin,the more conducive to the formation of entrepreneurial culture which is benefit for migrant entrepreneurship and CEO performance.Immigrants whose cities of origin were cities with historical ports were also influenced by a strong entrepreneurial culture and strengthened the role of historical arable land per capita.Based on the above findings,this paper has certain contributions.First,it has a theoretical contribution to the long-term influence of historical factors on economic activities.By introducing two key historical factors,namely historical arable land per capita and the opening of historical ports,this paper is the first to verify the joint influence of historically natural factors and historical event shocks on economic development in a more systematic way.On the one hand,previous studies have generally argued that unfavorable agricultural conditions may have inhibited economic growth.However,this paper demonstrates that historical arable land per capita leaves a legacy that continues to influence current entrepreneurial activity by shaping entrepreneurial personalities,human capital,and sustaining the cultivation of entrepreneurial culture.On the other hand,while previous studies have focused on historical events with lasting impact that are generally historical events in the world,this paper introduces the opening of historical ports,an important milestone in modern China,to add to this missing piece of the puzzle in both world and Chinese history.Second,this paper not only demonstrates the causal relationship between historical factors and long-term entrepreneurial activity,but also provides a theoretical contribution to the mechanism by which historical factors can have a long-term impact on economic development.This paper considers “people” as the core element of the long-term impact of historical events,and constructs a model based on genetic traits-personality(Fritsch et al.,2019a),acquired traits-human capital(Chen et al.,2019a),and social traits-entrepreneurial culture(Wang et al.,2021).It contributes to the understanding of historical factors shaping the cultural and social patterns of modern regions and the transmission mechanisms of modern economic development.Third,this paper makes a theoretical contribution to research related to entrepreneurial activity.This paper composes and restores data on the history of Chinese enterprise development spanning a thousand years at the prefecture level,and constructs a database on the history of Chinese entrepreneurship development,which has important theoretical value for studies related to Chinese enterprise development and entrepreneurship.At the same time,this paper explains the reasons for the uneven distribution of current entrepreneurial activities from the perspective of historical factors,which is of great theoretical value for a deeper understanding of the huge differences in entrepreneurial activities and private economic development among regions in China and enriching the field of entrepreneurship research.In addition,this paper enriches the research related to entrepreneurial culture.Based on data from domestic migrants in China,this paper avoids possible biases in previous studies of international immigrants and corroborates the enduring influence of entrepreneurial culture through different entrepreneurial activities of domestic migrants.Finally,in terms of practical contributions,this paper provides important policy insights into national strategies and policies such as “mass entrepreneurship and innovation”,“further stimulating and protecting entrepreneurship” and“entrepreneurship drives employment” that are being promoted in the new environment.(1)Learning from history.History is a mirror,through the historical factors and business activities,from the Ming and Qing dynasty merchant gangs,the experience and lesson of “reversal of fortune” and the development of modern enterprises can be learned,providing a basis for decision-making;(2)Adapt to local conditions.Understanding the historical roots of modern economic development,recognizing the long-standing historical differences in the process of economic development,this paper provides a basis for local institutional reform and policy intervention.For example,the study of the opening of historical ports provides an understanding of the importance of open policies such as the “One Belt,One Road” and the Free Trade Zone development strategy in alleviating the imbalance in China’s economic development.At the same time,this paper promotes the contribution of the central and western regions to sustainable development.It also provides experience and evidence to connect the domestic and foreign double cycle in the context of COVID-19 pandemic.(3)Path breakthrough.By sorting out the mechanism of “from history to reality”,we can effectively identify the bottlenecks of economic development or important support for economic development,and provide a basis for gradually breaking(or strengthening)the influence of historical factors from the path.Even if we cannot change history,we can create better conditions for entrepreneurship and economic development in terms of personality,human capital,and entrepreneurial culture by encouraging more commercial activities,which will promote the long-term development and prosperity of the region and leave a valuable legacy for the development afterwards.