1 论文标题
The Five-Phases of Economic Development and Institutional Evolution in China and Japan
2 作者信息
Masahiko Aoki
3 出处和链接（比如，NBER working paper No.11000）
ADBI （亚洲发展银行研究中心） Working Paper Series No. 340 December 201
4 摘要
Based on the variable rate of gross domestic product per capita growth and its sources, this
paper first identifies five phases of economic development that are common to China, Japan,
and Korea: M (Malthusian), G (government-led), K (à la Kuznets), H (human capital based)
and PD (post demographic-transition). But there are also marked differences in the onset,
duration, and institutional forms of these phases across these economies. In order to
understand these differences, this paper explores the agrarian origins of institutions in Qing
China and Tokugawa Japan (and briefly Chosŏn Korea) and their path-dependent
transformations over those phases. Indoing so, the paper employs game-theoretic
reasoning and interpretations of divergent institutional evolution between China and Japan,
which also clarifies the simplicity of prevailing arguments that identify East Asian
developmental and institutional features with authoritarianism, collectivism, kinshipdominance, Confucianism and the like. Finally, the paper examines the relevance of the
foregoing developmental discussions to theinstitutional agendas faced by the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) and Japan in their respective emergent phase-transitions. In what
way can the PRC avoid the “middle income trap”? What institutional shortcomings become
evident from the Fukushima catastrophe and how can they be overcome in an aging Japan?