Abstract
The Chinese economy has rapidly developed since the beginning of reforms and open-door policy in the late 1970’s. But when it comes to a question: How today’s development in China is originated, we have to see it as a historical process. As Douglas North argues, today’s institutions are strongly dependent on the historical path. Technological development of today, either, cannot be separated from the past performance. Thus we need to ask how China’s development benefits from and /or is constrained by its historical legacies. In the following papers two issues are taken up: development of corporate system in China and industrial agglomeration in a district of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province. These are of course just experimental studies on China’s economic development from historical aspects. More studies on its historical legacies are expected to be followed, such as those on how financial institutions have been transformed in China since the prewar period, how market organizations have developed in the long run, so on and so forth.
