The Study On The Rural Finance Of Zhejiang In1920s And1930s

After the reform and opening up, with more attention to the study of economichistory, research on rural financial relations has become an important ring of ruraleconomic and social studies. With the development of rural economy, rural financeis the important financing way of modern agricultural production and farmers’ life, italways achieves through personal or rural financial organizations. From the lateQing Dynasty, the downstream area of the Yangtze River, rural area financial lifeline is in the hand of the local landlords and bureaucrats. The private usury occupiesthe dominant position, and financial institutions, like banks, pawn shops, cooperativesand others, which rural lending network forming. Between1920and1930, influencedby natural disaster, wars and other factors, the rural economy of provinces by theYangtze River was on the brink of collapse. The rural finance had dried up, farmerindebtedness phenomenon and amount of debt were higher and hihger, the rampantspread rapidly, which Zhejiang province was no exception. In order to ease the socialcontradictions of the rural finance, the Nanjing national government actively had setup a modern rural financial system. It established the mechanism of cooperatives andagricultural bank, aimed at creating a new model of rural financial network, makingthe modern rural financial develop further. But the economic development of laterrural areas, the new financial systems were not completely replaced the old ones.However, both of them were coexisted, which had been result in rather complicatedconnections between the traditional rural finance and the modern rural finance.In1920s and1930s, nearly the whole rural areas in Zhejiang were covered by thelending relationship. There is a strong universality and dependence on the lendingactivities, which is closely linked with farmers’ production and their lives. The mostimportant financial institutions in rural areas of Zhejiang were pawn shops, whichwere numerous, but the distribution was not balanced. Based on the analysis of pawnshops in folk history of rural conditions, this article would study the characteristics ofZhejiang local pawnshop, elaborating its important effects on its lending relationships.And, on that basis, by studying the decline of traditional financial institutions, thenegative impact through growing impoverishment of the farmers ’ living on financialinstitutions could be revealed, and the analysis of the interaction of the rural economywould be made at the same time, then the history of traditional financial institutions inthe loan relationships will be reproduced. In addition, two other types of financial institutions in rural areas of Zhejiang province would be made a detailed presentation.Rural cooperatives and the agricultural Bank, as the representatives of new financialinstitutions, the increasingly important role are fully explored. Through analysis thatimpact on farmer loan relationships of rural cooperatives and the agricultural Bank,the author is committed to make an indepth study of them.This paper is using the method of history and economics, through the use ofempirical, comparative studies, including history, aimed at restoring the Zhejiangrural economic landscape by micro and macro aspects. On the basis of gatheringrelevant historical materials, with combination of rural economics, sociology andother related theories or methods, pawn shops, cooperatives, agricultural banks andsome other financial institutions are demonstrated.