The Laws and Economics of Confucianism

Taisu Zhang is an Associate Professor of Law at Yale Law School, Connecticut and works on comparative legal history - specifically, economic institutions in modern China and early modern Western Europe - comparative law, property law, and contemporary Chinese Law. This is his first book. In dissertation form, it was the recipient of Yale University's Arthur and Mary Wright Dissertation Prize and the American Society for Legal History's Kathryn T. Preyer Award. Zhang is a founding board member of the International Society for Chinese Law and History.

• 1. 'Dian' sales in Qing and Republican China; 2. Mortgages in early modern England; 3. Kinship, social hierarchy, and institutional divergence (theories); 4. Kinship, social hierarchy, and institutional divergence (empirics); 5. Kinship hierarchies in Late Imperial history; 6. Property institutions and agricultural capitalism; Conclusion; Index.

'In this lucid and thought-provoking study, Taisu Zhang creatively and empirically reinterprets the causal relationships among cultural norms, property institutions, and socioeconomic behavior in early modern China and England. This holds profound implications for the study of global economic history, Sino-Western comparison, and Chinese law and society. This important book will not fail to stimulate new inquiries and debates for many years to come.' Li Chen, University of Toronto, author of Chinese Law in Imperial Eyes and President of the International Society for Chinese Law and History