The Historical And Comparative Institutional Analysis Of Shanxi Merchants And Chaoshan Merchants

Shanxi Merchants did very good jobs at business during the Ming and Qingdynasties，and they had been the most richest merchant groups at more than fivehundred years. The Chaoshan Merchants rose a bit later than the Shanxi Merchants，and got glorious acchievements in business as the same. Yet during the nearly onehundred years，the fates of both had changed a lot with the ups and downs of thehistory issues，Shanxi Merchants gradually decline and demise ultimately，while theChaoshan Merchants were founding one after another brilliant enterprises at homeand abroad. The significant difference of the two endings make us doubt that whatfactors led to the rise and fall of the merchant groups，and what kind of behaviors ledto the the contradiction model of business? This article will try to find out the deeptruth.Due to the lacking of directly comparison platforms，there are few comparativestudies between the two groups. However，the cultural backgrounds of the two groupsare so charming that we can find much more things than expected. Shanxi Merchantswere influenced by the traditional farming culture typically while the ChaoshanMerchants were dominanted by the marine culture. Professor Greif and his Historicaland Comparative Institutional Analysis (HCIA) theory insist that internal elements(such as customs，culture，etc.) of an economic system would lead to difference anddiversity in economic efficiency. And the HCIA go further，the traditional culturebuild up shared cognition，behavior orders and beliefs，all of those will lead to aspecial way of running business. It means that different culture will influenceeconomic efficiency in diverse way.By using the historical and deductive research method，combining with the historicaland cultural factores of the Shanxi Merchants and Chanshan Merchants，we gotinference that their difference business models leading to their different ending.Frankly speaking，history and culture factores decide the destinies of the twomerchants groups.