@article{5e61dbc4b10f481b8934eef1681b5854,
title = "Long live keju! The persistent effects of China's civil examination system",
abstract = "China's civil examination system (keju), an incredibly long-lived institution, has a persistent impact on human capital outcomes today. Using the variation in the density of jinshi-the highest qualification-across 278 Chinese prefectures in the Ming-Qing period (c. 1368-1905) to proxy for this effect, we find that a doubling of jinshi per 10,000 population leads to an 8.5% increase in years of schooling in 2010. The persistent effect of keju can be attributed to a multitude of channels including cultural transmission, educational infrastructure, social capital and, to a lesser extent, political elites.",
author = "Ting Chen and {Kai-Sing Kung}, James and Chicheng Ma",
note = "Funding Information: We thank the Editor, Hans-Joachim Voth, and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. We also thank Ying Bai, Sascha Becker, Stephen Broadberry, Felipe Valencia Caicedo, Davide Cantoni, Matteo Cervellati, Eric Chaney, Carl-Johan Dalgaard, Melissa Dell, Jeremiah Dittmar, Steven N. Durlauf, Oded Galor, Paola Giuliano, Wolfgang Keller, Yu Hao, Debin Ma, Stelios Michalopolous, Joel Mokyr, Petra Mosher, Nathan Nunn, Omer Ozak, Luigi Pascali, Louis Putterman, Ashraf Quamrul, Paola Sapienza, Carol Shiue, Tuan Hwee Sng, Enrico Spolaore, Nico Voigtl{\"a}nder, David Weil, Noam Yuchtman, Fabrizio Zilibotti and seminar participants at Aix-Marseille Universit{\'e}, Brown University, University of California—Berkeley, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, University of Colorado at Boulder, Fudan University, Harvard University, Hong Kong University, Jinan University, Kyoto (XVIITH World Economic History Congress), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit{\"a}t M{\"u}nchen, Peking University, Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, Saint Petersburg (Second World Congress of Comparative Economics), University of Warwick, and Yale University for helpful comments and suggestions. James Kai-sing Kung is especially grateful to the Sein and Isaac Souede Endowment for its generous financial support, and Chicheng Ma acknowledges the financial support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 71303135). We are solely responsible for any remaining errors.",
year = "2020",
month = apr,
day = "14",
doi = "10.1093/EJ/UEAA043",
language = "English",
volume = "130",
pages = "2030--2064",
journal = "Economic Journal",
issn = "0013-0133",
publisher = "Royal Economic Society",
number = "631",
}
