Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments January 18, 2022 erstellt
Description:
With the literary inquisition in the Qing Dynasty of China as a natural experiment, we empirically study the short- and long-term effects of extreme controls on freedom of speech on society. Through our empirical investigations, we attempt to contribute the explanations of two fundamental puzzles: (1) China was the global leader in science and technology before 1700, Why this advantage did not lead to an Industrial Revolution (the Needham puzzle); (2) why China declined in the late Qing Dynasty. With a Difference-in-Differences (DID) strategy, by exploiting the variation of the literary inquisition across region and over time, we find that the literary inquisition stifled spirit of innovation and significantly reduced scientific and technological inventions and further had a negative effect on the long-term economic development of the Qing Dynasty