由雨果的人道主义精神引发的对当代中国改革的若干思考
—以《九三年》为例
Daron Acemoglu Davide Cantoni Simon Johnson James A.Robinson
最近关于比较发展的文献中强调，如果没有正确的刺激经济增长的制度会造成不发达。但是在关于哪一种制度的必不可少的问题上存在争议。有一些学者强调了财产权（南斯和汤姆斯在1973年提出，阿西莫格鲁，约翰逊和罗宾逊在2001年提出，阿塞莫格鲁和约翰逊在2005提出），一些强调了法制（拉波尔塔、施莱弗和维什尼在1998年提出），还有人强调了其他进入壁垒及寡头政治（奥尔森在1982年提出，阿西莫格鲁在2008年提出）。
另一个未能达成一致的问题是制度是否能人为的设计，相对的这些认为设计的制度能否能从外部改革。海克（1960）认为制度不能认为的设计，必须让其自然发展（这也是民法典比较低等的主要原因），最近也有文献指出制度必须要和具体的国情相一致（伯克维兹、皮斯特和查理德在2003年提出，罗德里克在2007年提出）。当这种改革实施\'大爆炸\'的风格，这些问题被放大。这些观点的支持者认为强制进行制度改革可能会引起经济衰退，这种观点在20世纪80年代到90年代拉丁美洲、非洲以及前苏联制度改革的失败教训中得到证实，近年的阿富汗和土耳其改革的失败也证实了这个观点。然而，并不是所有的外部改革都是失败的，美国在战后的德国和日本进行的强制改革的成功就是很好的例子。
本文将主要通过法国大革命在欧洲引起的各种制度改革探索彻底的、强制的外部改革后引起的经济增长。在1792年后法国军队入侵了很多欧洲国家，并对这些国家进行了制度改革。这个事件的教训是当前一些关于制度问题的争议中心。法国在入侵地区强加的改革方案包括民法、废除工会和封建主义残余、引入法律面前人人平等的观点和废除贵族特权。这些改革显然与上述辩论相关。如果在19世纪的欧洲寡头政治是经济增长的主要障碍,那么我们希望大革命的改革能够使受影响的地区释放出更多的经济快速增长的活力。在另一方面，如果彻底的、强制的外部改革是昂贵的或者民法典造成了重大的扭曲，那改革就会有负面影响。
通过两组历史数据，我们调查了法国大革命，尤其是强加在欧洲其他国家的改革对经济的影响。第一组数据是跨国的。法国军队的入侵和改革只在欧洲部分地区进行，所以我们可以把这些入侵的地区当做实验组，并且分别比较各个地区在大革命前后经济发生的变化。虽然如此，在这个例子中还是有大量的差异性。比如法国在西欧的影响力比东欧大，即使我们没有证据来证明这种倾向，这并不排除实验组和控制组之间尚未被观察到的潜在差异。
除了国家之间的差异，我们也发现了德国的内部差异。德国部分地区，主要是西部和西北部地区是被入侵而且进行了改革的，但南部和东部没有。因此我们可以在德国内部构造出更多可比较的实验组和控制组。此外，我们收集了一些能够体现整个德国政治制度改革的数据。这使我们证实了法国确实对制度做了多方面的改革，而且利用两阶段最小二乘法的策略，我们把法国的入侵视为一种制度改革的工具。
我们识别策略的重点是，欧洲国家或者说德国的部分地区并没有使用法国的制度，而是使用了在大革命中以及后来拿破仑给他们施加的制度。然而，法国军队在进行领土扩张时并没有把未来增长潜力更大的地方当做目标。他们只有两个主要的目标，一个是防御，尤其是应对奥地利人或普鲁士人（后来的英国人）想要推翻大革命政权的威胁。另一个是扩张，扩张的部分原因是法兰西共和国的资源需求，部分原因是法国大革命的意识形态问题。另外，在18世纪90年代早期，法国人一直在寻求建立法国的“自然边界”。最后，法国大革命的支部改革目标并不是为了实现工业化，虽然作为主要目标——废除贵族特权、寡头政治以及取消神职人员在政治经济领域的力量——的副产品，他们可能会实现这一目标。因此，我们可以把法国大革命中制度的改革近似的视为外援治疗并探寻这场改革的经济影响。
我们给“法国治疗”下了三个定义：1法国占有期的长度（按年份）；2在1799年11月9日拿破仑接管之前的大革命时期法国控制的傀儡政权（革命日历的18雾月）；3从拿破仑时期直到1815年法国控制的傀儡政权。使用这三个定义，我们可以找到精简后的证据，无论是在国家之间，还是在德国内部，我们检验经济发展的重要指标——城市化率，在19世纪下半叶的实验区域都增长较快。我们还通过麦迪逊的GDP数据来充实我们跨国的分析。麦迪逊数据报道的是“德国”和“意大利”统一时期的，而不是他们分别成为独立政权以后的。然而法国治疗的大多数差异是在德国和意大利独立以后出现的，所以麦迪逊数据与城市化数据相比，城市化数据更接近我们的目标。虽然如此，我们发现GDP人均国内生产总值十分相似，虽然总体上比使用城市化率要差一些。
在德国，我们通过铁路的扩张和就业部门的组成找到了支持证据，再一次证实德国实验区确实要发展的快一些，在1850年后，工业化也更快一些。通过德国的这些数据，我们进一步证实了再我们测量的制度改革和法国的入侵或控制之间有着紧密的联系。把这些关联作为第一步，我们可以建立一个工具变量模型，这个模型可以表示政治制度改革对经济增长的重要影响。总的来说，我们的结果表明没有证据可以证明法国实施的政治制度改革对经济增长有负面影响。相反的，从大量不同的实证中可以获得十分一致的结论：法国大革命有积极的影响。
我们调查的过程中有一个重大的发现：制度改革的重要影响知道19世纪下半叶才显现出来。到1850年，实验区没有表现出不同的增长或者一定程度的轻微的（不显著的）负增长。这并不意外。法国大革命是伴随着由入侵和战争引起的破坏一起诞生的，法国军队的征用条款以及在占领地区施加的沉重的战争贡献，使他们远离的人民。
因此，法国入侵的短期影响可能是消极的。但是法国大革命中强制制度变革的这种影响是毫无意义的。最合理的假设和我们的主要任务是改革主要是为了创造更好的有助于创新和创业活动的环境。19世纪下半叶发生在欧洲大陆的工业革命的传播过程中环境是最重要的。我们所掌握的法国大革命对19世纪下半叶的积极影响的证据和假设是相一致的。
从本文所提供的证据中可得到几个主要的结论。首先这个结果强调了制度以及制度改革在经济发展中所扮演的角色；其次，我们的发现和认为旧的政权（工会、农村的封建残留、没有法律面前人人平等）会阻碍发展的观点一致。但是，法国大革命作为一个整体，不允许我们评论某一部分的相对重要性，比如我们无法评价废除工会和废除贵族特权哪一个更重要；第三，这些并不能说明民法和法国大革命对经济又决定性的影响；第四，这些并不能支持那些认为制度能有效的适应社会基本特征的论文，也不能说明自然发展的制度变革有有意设计或者外部强加的制度改革要更优越。法国革命军队带来的新的和完全不同的制度有别于先前已经存在的，在“大爆炸”中也是一样。即使这样，我们的证据表明这是一个经济上的成功。总之，这些发现对于那些支持彻底的制度改革者来说十分有趣。这些发现表明，彻底的制度改革可能会成功，至少在特点的历史背景中会成功。
法国大革命的成功引出了一个问题：为什么当其他的外部强制性改革经常失败的时候法国大革命能成功？最有可能是因为法国大革命比其他的改革要更彻底。法国大革命是在多个方面同时展开的，而且削弱了当地精英的力量，使复辟根本不可能发生。即使前期改革精英在1815年后重新掌权，政治的平衡性以及永久的改变。与其他的改革经验相比，法国大革命的这种范围和激进主义的改革经验在战后德国和日本改革时十分常见。
除了在上文中已经讨论过到的关于不同的制度改革的意义和可取性，我们的论文是一个关于法国大革命后果的重要文献。关于法国大革命现代形式的讨论是从1790年保守派的英国哲学家埃德蒙·伯克发布的小册子中开始的，标题是法国大革命的沉思，这个小册子是关于制度改革争论的开端，而这种争论延续至今仍没有定论。在这个小册子中伯克谴责了法国大革命的暴行、干涉主义精神以及激进主义，他在文中写到：“它总是不断的警告任何人都应该敢于推到大厦，这回答了任何年龄的人都能够接受的共同的社会目的，或者是不用模型和已经获得批准的程序模式重建一栋大厦”。伯克从这些事件中获得的结论是法国大革命的消极影响不仅在法国，不仅在其直接影响，而且会潜在的改变未来的几十年甚至是几个世纪的世界。
在另一方面，对法国大革命的积极接受像伯克对它的谴责一样热情洋溢。1791年，托马斯·潘恩，在一本后来成为19世纪欧洲民主化运动经典的书《人类的权利》中反驳了伯克的说法。潘恩把法国大革命视为自由与法律面前人人平等的先兆，在废除旧的政治制度中起到了重要的作用。潘恩说：“它反对了专制政府的原则，这是民族的反叛。这些根深蒂固的原则，以及肮脏恶心的寄生虫和掠夺者很难被任何不完整的、普遍的革命清理干净。”潘恩认为，法国大革命就是那种能够破除旧制度，能够解救受旧制度管制的人民的彻底的制度革命。这种旧制度不仅在道义上令人厌恶，而且是导致经济低效的重要源头。因此，法国大革命能够通过废除旧的农奴制、贵族特权、教会在政治和土地上的主导地位以及法律的不平等为现代的自由民主制度铺平道路。
伯克和潘恩之间的争论并没有通过学术研究得以解决，在法国大革命的经济后果上也没有达成共识。一方面，很多经济历史学家，比如兰德斯把法国大革命视为被大陆国家技术采用的政治障碍，并总结到作为法国大革命的结果，大陆和法国技术上的代沟变宽了，然而大多数的基础教育、经济和社会障碍依然在模仿。
另一方面，很多其他的经济历史学家也同意默克尔的评价，默克尔认为法国大革命的长期影响是清除大陆旧制度的残骸，因此保证了欧洲最终有能力跟随英国革命性的生产系统；而且法国大革命和拿破仑在欧洲建立了更多具有前瞻性的政府。即使是一直强调法国大革命消极影响的兰德斯也提到这种制度的变革能够促进工会的废除。
本文剩下部分的结构主要是：第二部分对法国大革命以及后来法国对欧洲的入侵进行了一个整体的概述；第三部分讨论了我们的数据；第五部分主要是探寻德国政治改革地区和未改革地区增长经验的不同；第六部分总结全文。
外文录著：
Daron Acemoglu, Davide Cantoni, Simon Johnson, and James A.Robinson The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution
NBER Working Paper No.14831 April 2009 JEL No.N23 The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution
Daron Acemoglu, Davide Cantoni, Simon Johnson, and James A.Robinson
The recent literature on comparative development has emphasized that underdevelopment is caused by institutions that do not create the right incentives for economic growth.But there is disagreement about which specific institutions are important.Some scholars emphasize property rights (North and Thomas, 1973, Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson, 2001, Acemoglu and Johnson, 2005), some legal institutions (La Porta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer, and Vishny,1998)and others barriers to entry or oligarchies (Olson, 1982, Acemoglu, 2008).Another unresolved iue is whether institutions can be designed, and relatedly whether they can be reformed externally.Hayek (1960) argued that institutions cannot be designed and have to evolve organically (and that this was the major reason for the inferiority of the civil code), and a recent literature has claimed that institutions have to be `appropriate\' to the specific circumstances of countries (Berkowitz, Pistor and Richard, 2003a,b, Rodrik, 2007).1These problems are amplified when such reforms are implemented `Big Bang\' style.Proponents of these views argue that enforced institutional change is likely to reduce prosperity, a claim that receives some support from the apparent failures of institutional reforms in Latin America, Africa, the former Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s, and the recent experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq.Not all external reform are failures, however, as evidenced, for example, by the succeful US-imposed reforms in postwar Germany and Japan.In this paper we exploit the variation in institutional reform created in Europe by the French Revolution to investigate the consequences of radical, externally-imposed reform on subsequent economic growth.After 1792 French armies invaded and reformed the institutions of many European countries.The leons from this episode are central to some of the current debates on institutions.First, the package of reforms the French imposed on areas they conquered included the civil code, the abolition of guilds and the remnants of feudalism, and the introduction of equality before the law and the undermining of aristocratic privilege.These reforms thus clearly relate to the above-mentioned debates.If oligarchies were the main barrier to economic growth in Europe at the turn of the 19th century, then we would expect the Revolutionary reforms to unleash more rapid economic growth in affected areas.If, on the other hand, externally imposed radical reform is generally costly or if the civil code creates major distortions, the reforms should have negative effects.2 We investigate the economic consequences of the French Revolution, and particularly, the reforms that it imposed on the rest of Europe, by using two sources of historical data.The frist is cro-national.French armies invaded and reformed some parts of Europe but not others,so we can take those invaded as the `treatment group\' and compare their relative economic succe before and after the revolutionary period.Neverthele, there is a substantial amount of heterogeneity in this sample.For instance, the French tended to have a greater impact on countries in Western Europe compared to Eastern Europe and even though we show that there is no evidence of pre-trends, this does not rule out potential unobserved differences between the treatment and control groups.In addition to cro-national variation, we also examine variation within Germany.Parts of Germany, primarily the west and northwest, were invaded and reformed, while the south and the east were not.Therefore we can construct more comparable treatment and control groups within Germany.In addition, we collected data to develop several series of institutional reforms acro German polities.This enables us both to verify that the French did indeed reform various aspects of institutions and to utilize a two-stage least squares strategy, with French invasion as an instrument for institutional reform Crucially for our identification strategy, European countries or parts of Germany did not choose the French institutions, but those institutions were imposed on them frist by the Revolution and then by Napoleon.3 Moreover, territorial expansion by French armies did not target places with a greater future growth potential.Instead, it had two major objectives.The frist was defensive, especially, in response to the threat of Austrian or Pruian (or later British)attempts to topple the Revolutionary regime.The second was expansionary.This was partly because of resource needs of the French Republic, and partly because of the ideology of the French Revolution.In addition, in the early 1790s, the French sought to establish France\'s`natural frontiers.\'4 Finally, the purpose of the institutional reforms of the French Revolution was not to foster industrialization per se, though they may have achieved this objective as a by-product of its major goal of destroying the grip of the aristocracy, oligarchy, and the clergy on political and economic power.5 Therefore, to a frist approximation, we can think of the imposition of the institutions of the French Revolution as an `exogenous treatment\' and investigate the economic implications of the radical French reforms.We distinguish three definitions of `French treatment:\' (1) length of French occupation(in years), (2) a dummy for French control during the Revolutionary period prior to the take-over of Napoleon in 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire in the revolutionary calendar), (3) a dummy for French control during the Napoleonic period up until 1815.Using all three definitions, we find reduced-form evidence, both acro countries and within Germany, that our main proxy for economic prosperity, urbanization rates, increased significantly faster in treated areas during the second half of the 19th century.We also supplement our cro-country analysis with Maddison\'s GDP data.Maddison reports data for `Germany\' and `Italy\' prior to their unification, rather than the independent polities which subsequently unified.Much of the variation in French treatment, however, is within what became Germany and Italy,so Maddison\'s data are much le appropriate than the urbanization data for our purposes.Neverthele, the findings with GDP per-capita are similar, though on the whole weaker than those using urbanization rates.Within Germany, we provide supporting evidence using the expansion of railways and the sectoral composition of employment, again suggesting that treated parts of Germany grew more rapidly|in fact, industrialized more rapidly|after 1850.Using German data, we further show a strong aociation between our measures of institutional reforms and French invasion or control.Using this aociation as a first stage, we also estimate instrumental-variables models, which indicate large effects of institutional reforms on subsequent growth.Overall, our results show no evidence that the reforms imposed by the French had negative economic consequences.On the contrary, there is fairly consistent evidence from a variety of different empirical strategies that they had positive effects.An important aspect of our findings is that the positive effects of institutional reforms are only visible in the second half of the 19th century.By 1850, treated areas show no differential growth or in some specifications, slight (and insignificant) negative growth.This is not surprising.The French reforms were accompanied by the disruptions caused by invasion and war and this often had quite destructive and exploitative aspects (see, for instance, Blanning, 1983,1986).Grab (2003, p.1), for example, writes \\the French armies requisitioned provisions and imposed heavy war contributions on occupied regions, thereby alienating their populations.\" Thus, the short-term impact of French invasion may have been negative.But this is uninformative about the impact of Revolution-imposed institutional changes.The most plausible hypothesis|and our starting point|is that the major role of the reforms was in creating an environment conducive to innovation and entrepreneurial activity.This environment mattered most in the diemination of the industrial revolution, which took place in Continental Europe in the second half of the 19th century.6 Our evidence of positive effects in the second half of the 19th century is consistent with this hypothesis.There are several main conclusions from the evidence presented in this paper.First, the results emphasize the role of institutions and institutional reforms in economic development.7Second, our findings are consistent with the view that the institutions of the ancien riegime (guilds, feudal legacy in countryside, absence of equality before the law) impeded growth.However, the fact that French reforms came as a bundle does not allow us to ae the relative importance of, for example, the abolition of guilds compared to the abolition of feudal privileges.Third, they do not support the view that civil code and French institutions have detrimental economic effects.8 Fourth, the evidence does not support the thesis that institutions are efficiently adapted to the underlying characteristics of a society and that evolved institutions are superior to those that are designed or externally imposed.The French Revolutionary armies imposed new and radically different institutions from those existing previously, and did so in extreme `Big Bang\' style.Neverthele, our evidence suggests that this was an economic succe\'.Taken together, these findings are interesting for those who favor radical institutional reforms.They suggest these may be succeful, at least in certain historical Contexts.The succe of the French reforms raises the question: why did they work when other externally-imposed reforms often fail? Most likely this is because the reforms were much more radical than is typically the case.9 The French reformed simultaneously in many dimensions and weakened the powers of local elites, making a return to the status quo ante largely impoible.Even when some pre-revolution elites returned to power after 1815, there was a permanent change in the political equilibrium.This scope and radicalism of the French reforms are common with the post-war reform experiences in Germany and Japan and stand in contrast with many other reform experiences. In addition to the literature on the implications and desirability of different types of institutional reforms, discued above, our paper is related to a large literature on the consequences of the French Revolution.The debate on the French Revolution was started in its modern form by the pamphlet published by the conservative English philosopher Edmund Burke in 1790, entitled Reections on the Revolution in France, which initiated controversies about institutional change which continue today.In this pamphlet, Burke condemned the brutality, the interventionist spirit and the radicalism of the French Revolution and argued: \\It is with infinite caution that any man should venture upon pulling down an edifice, which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of society, or on building it up again without having models and patterns of approved utility before his eyes\" Burke (1969, p.152).The conclusion Burke drew from these events was that the negative impacts of the French Revolution would be felt not only in France and not only in its immediate aftermath, but would potentially change the world for many more decades or even centuries to come.On the other side, the positive reception of the French Revolution was as enthusiastic as Burke\'s condemnation.Thomas Paine, in a book that would subsequently become a claic for the democratization movements of the 19th-century Europe, The Rights of Man, responded to Burke in 1791.Paine hailed the French Revolution as the harbinger of freedom and equality before the law, a role that it achieved by demolishing the ancient regime.Paine argued:\\ It was ...against the despotic principles of the government, that the nation revolted.These principles had ...become too deeply rooted to be removed, and the Augean stable of parasites and plunderers too abominably lthy to be cleansed, by anything short of a complete and universal revolution\" Paine (1969, p.69).According to Paine, the French Revolution was exactly the kind of radical institutional reform neceary to break the hold on land and people exercised by the ancien regime, which was not only morally abhorrent, but also the source of significant economic inefficiencies.The Revolution would therefore pave the way for modern freedoms and democratic institutions by removing serfdom, aristocratic privileges, the Church\'s domination over politics and land, and inequity before the law.The debate between Burke and Paine has not been resolved by academic research and there is no consensus about the economic consequences of the French Revolution.On the one hand, many economic historians, like Landes (1969, p.142), view the French Revolution as \\a political roadblock\" to technological adoption for Continental countries, and conclude that as a consequence of the Revolution, \\the gap in technique [between the Continent and Britain] had widened, while most of the fundamental educational, economic, and social obstacles to imitation remained\" (Landes, 1969, p.147).Similarly, Buyst and Mokyr (1990, p.64, 74) write:
\\it is our contention ...that the Dutch economy in the years of the French and Napoleonic Wars was another example of a small open commercial economy whose prosperity was disrupted by world events ...The French period ...[was] disastrous for the Dutch economy.\" Crouzet\'s (2001, p.121) view is similar, noting \\the French Revolution and the wars that followed greatly slowed the transfer of technology.\"10 On the other hand, many other economic historians also agree with Mokyr\'s aements that \\the Revolution\'s long-term effect was to clear up the debris of the ancien regime on the Continent, thus auring Europe\'s ability eventually to follow Britain in revolutionizing its productive system\" (1990, p.259), and that \\the French Revolution and Napoleon installed more forward looking governments in Europe\" (1990, p.253).Even Landes, who generally emphasizes the negative effects of the Revolution, also mentions in paing that such institutional changes as the abolition of guilds were beneficial (1969, pp.144-145).11 The rest of the paper is organized as follows.Section 2 provides an overview of the history of the French Revolution and the subsequent invasion of Europe by the French.Section 3 discues our data.Section 4 provides country-level regreion evidence investigating the reduced form effect of treatment on our dependent variables.Section 5 looks at the differences in the growth experience of treated and untreated German polities.Section 6 concludes.
