Political Elites and Human Capital Formation in Pre-Imperial China

Abstract

I examine the activity of political elites during a period of intensive state-building in pre-imperial China. I hand-collect a novel dataset on 1,304 political elites in Spring and Autumn China, and document increasing substitution away from nobles and towards commoners in state offices, growing competition over office-holding across different social groups, and intra-elite conflicts as the primary cause of elites’ exit from office. I argue that such substitution was made possible by the rise of a class of literate commoners as a new source of administrative human capital. I identify intra-elite conflict and improvement in agricultural productivity as two drivers behind the emergence of literate commoners. The former expanded commoners’ access to learning from literati who experienced a decline in social status due to conflict, and the latter enabled commoners to invest more time in learning literacy, which has a positive economic return. Finally, I discuss the implications of human capital for state-building.

Keywords: Political Elites, Human Capital, Pre-Imperial China, State-Building, Social Mobility

JEL Classification: H70, N45, P35