The remarkable feature of new economic historiography is to use economic theory and econometric methods to analyze the development history of human economy and society, explore the reasons for the success or failure of rise and fall, and provide reference for today's social and economic development. At present, the research framework of new economic history is mainly summarized according to chronology, which is generally divided into three stages: the first stage (1950s-1970s) is mainly quantitative analysis, and its methods are mainly "counterfactual measurement" and "indirect measurement"; The second stage (70s-80s) is based on economic system analysis, and the main method is institutional economics theory, especially property right theory. The third stage (since 1980s) is historical physiology, that is, combining the research on the evolutionary history of human living conditions with the research on social and economic history, integrating and expanding historical econometric analysis and institutional analysis, and combining it with modern biological and medical analysis techniques and other natural science achievements. [1] The three stages are interlocking, step by step and have internal logical relations. However, this does not give an intuitive impression on the comprehensive understanding of the research content of the new economic history, and if there are different research methods, the same research content will be repeatedly studied and discussed. Inspired by the division of economics into micro-,meso-and macro-economics, we try to divide the new economic history into micro-,meso-and macro-analysis new economic history system, in which the economic history research that analyzes a single market or project is summarized as the micro-analysis of the new economic history; Summarize the economic history of analyzing the overall development and change of an industry into a meso-analysis; Summarize the economic history of analyzing the overall development and change of a country or region as a macro analysis. 1. Micro-analysis of the new economic history The so-called micro-analysis of the new economic history refers to the analysis and test of the market price in historical events and its relationship with the rational behavior of economic subjects with microeconomic theory as the analysis tool and economic activities such as production and consumption of a single economic unit as the research object. Its representative research achievement is Tanjimi, Osaka in the Edo period of Japan. Tanshimami City in Osaka was born in the Edo Tokugawa era. Edo shogunate is a conservative government following the feudal system and identity system. The shogunate not only imposed a strict social order, but also prohibited foreign contact and trade. This gives people an impression similar to the dark period of economic stagnation in medieval Europe. The shogunate's income mainly depended on farmers' annual tribute, and Lord Mufan exercised unified control over Gong Mi in later years. When it was necessary to transport a large amount of grain out of the country, Mufan lords found it inconvenient to rely on merchants in the early days. The reason is that following the original method of luxury goods merchants can't make a profit in the circulation process, and it can't manage the transportation and sales in Gong Mi well, which is very inefficient. So Mufan lords directly transported, kept and sold Gong Mi in China, prepared harbors and shipping routes in their territory, managed the quality and packaging of rice, set up transshipment warehouses and transshipment centers in Osaka, and hired professionals in transportation, commodity trading and finance to participate in the management. /kloc-in the second half of the 0/7th century, Japanese governors brought rice into Osaka in succession, and the sales of Tibetan rice in Osaka gradually increased, resulting in a spontaneous rice market. [2] With the increase of transaction scale, Osaka rice market is gradually standardized in order to promote the smooth transaction and avoid transaction risks. At first, the transactions in the rice market were mainly physical transactions, which caused a lot of inconvenience. In order to facilitate trading, the market spontaneously produced a "rice coupon", which stipulated that rice coupon holders could exchange (extract) rice within 30 days, but in fact it could still be circulated for a long time. In this way, rice coupons not only have the function of value storage and exchange means, but also promote the circulation of rice market. With the extension of the time from the issuance of rice vouchers to the delivery, the risk of rice price changes of rice merchants increases. In the long run, it will inevitably lead to the shrinking of rice market transactions. In order to eliminate this trading risk, two rice brokers in Osaka have developed a trading method of "intra-business trading". The specific method is to set up "Jianwumi", and the peers must pay a certain margin for futures trading within a certain period of time and pay off the trading balance within the specified date. The settlement of the opening balance is conducted between both parties. With more and more frequent transactions, the relationship between buyers and sellers becomes complicated, which is undertaken by a special settlement institution called "Sending the Second Generation". This is the origin of the later "account rice business" (futures exchange), [3] and then developed into the rice futures market in Tandao, Osaka. [4] Some Japanese new economic historians have conducted fruitful research on the rice trading market in Tantalum Island, Osaka with traditional methods. However, scholars of new economic history believe that it is not enough to analyze and describe the formation process and significance of Tangdao Rice Market. It is more economical to find out whether the price formation in this market is effective in the sense of modern financial theory. Based on this assumption, Japanese scholars empirically tested the function and nature of the rice market in Tangdao at that time, combining the spot and futures price data. They also made a regression analysis of the difference between the futures price and the spot price (futures premium) for the quantity of Kumi rice, and concluded that the Tangdao rice market at that time had the nature of commodity futures market to a certain extent. In view of this, the edo period should not be regarded as a dark period of stagnation, but as an era of vigorous development on the basis of social stability. During this period, Japan's agricultural productivity has been greatly improved, commodity crops and domestic trade have been greatly developed, and Japan has already met the conditions for industrialization. [5] Second, the meso-level analysis of the new economic history. The so-called meso-analysis of new economic history refers to the use of meso-economic theories such as industrial organization economics and regulatory economics to focus on the changes of historical events in a certain industry, a certain department or a certain region, so as to explore the impact of such events on social and economic development. The representative research result is the social and economic impact of the British Navigation Act on Britain, European countries and North American colonies. The so-called Navigation Act is a series of legislation on maritime trade in British history. Its original intention is to encourage the development of British shipping industry and overseas trade and protect Britain's interests in the mercantilist system. Its direct performance is to maintain a surplus position in international trade. [6] The main provisions of the Navigation Act are as follows: First, all ships used for colonial trade must be manufactured, owned and commanded by British or colonists, and at least three quarters of the crew must be British or colonists; Second, all international trade with colonies (generally referring to places outside the British Empire) must be handled by Britain; Third, some colonial goods can only be exported to Britain. At first, these commodities were limited to tobacco, sugar, cotton, dyewood and indigo, but by the beginning of the18th century, rice, molasses and naval supplies were also included. [7] The Navigation Act protects the economic interests of Britain as a colonial mother country: First, it can ensure that the huge income of transportation trade stays within the empire; Second, this can strengthen the British naval power and consolidate military hegemony; Third, restricting the direct trade between colonies and foreign countries can improve Britain's economic interests. The navigation bill can also bring benefits to the colonies. First of all, it made the colony avoid competition from outside the British Empire and protected the colony's infant industry. Secondly, the British policy of subsidizing part of colonial production benefited the colonies. For example, starting from 1748, the British government gave a subsidy of 6p per pound of indigo, which played a key role in the industrial growth of South Carolina. [8] Finally, due to the mercantilist protection policy, the British government opened the domestic market to the North American colonies, indirectly benefiting those North American colonial exporters who did not enjoy product subsidies. However, the navigation act harmed the social interests of other European countries and North American colonies. For other European countries, first of all, if the trade target is limited to Britain and its colonies, it may be impossible to choose the transport service provider with the lowest transport price as a partner. For example, the Dutch adopted unarmed flat-bottomed clippers earlier. Although they can provide transportation services at lower prices, they cannot become partners. Secondly, any trade outside the British Empire must pass through Britain, resulting in more unnecessary freight, handling fees, parking fees, customs clearance fees and other related expenses. [9] These extra expenses reduced the profits of colonial farmers selling tobacco, and at the same time increased the price paid by consumers for tobacco products, which harmed the interests of producers and final consumers. For example, from 1725 to 1729, the price of tobacco in Amsterdam is more than four times that in Philadelphia, which mainly reflects the difference in handling and transportation costs between the two markets. [10] The Navigation Act also brought more burdens to the North American colonies. The navigation act brought an extra burden to the North American colonies in the import link. If the colonists wanted to import goods from outside the British Empire, they had to pay a high price for these goods, because the import price included the increased cost of indirect transmission through Britain. Similar to the import link, the navigation act also brought a heavy negative impact on the export of North American colonies. Tobacco and rice produced by colonies and exported to Europe must be re-exported from Britain, and a large part of the cost of re-export must be borne by plantation owners in southern colonies. Navigation laws make these plantations mainly pay higher transportation costs. In order to compete in the market, the price of plantation owners' products can not be increased accordingly, thus reducing profits. In addition, the navigation bill may exclude foreign ships with lower freight rates from trade and shipping, which makes colonial exporters have to pay higher freight rates to ships within the British Empire, thus correspondingly increasing the production and operation costs of North American colonies and reducing profits. According to Robert Thomas's estimation, the total burden of the Navigation Act on the colonial import and export in 1770 was $365,438+billion. [1 1] Therefore, the artificial extension and restriction of the foreign trade chain caused the colonial people to suffer economic losses. In addition, the North American colonies had no right to issue currency and had to export precious metals to their home country, Britain, which caused a serious shortage of precious metals in the colonies and a serious imbalance in the amount of money, which made the intra-colonial trade chaotic and unable to proceed smoothly, seriously affected the life and economic order of the colonial people and caused growing dissatisfaction among the North American people. In a sense, the economic consequences of navigation are one of the economic reasons for the outbreak of the War of Independence. Macro-analysis of the new economic history The macro-analysis of the new economic history mainly refers to the application of macroeconomic theory to study the historical changes of national economic activities, focusing on the changes of national income, employment level, price level and other economic aggregates of countries or regions in history and their impact on social and economic development and changes. Among them, Douglas North and Robles Thomas have the most representative studies on the rise and fall of western countries, which provide a macro-analysis framework for the new economic history. One of the tasks of new economic historiography is to explain the economic structure and performance in various historical periods. When explaining performance, the initial emphasis is on total output, per capita output and social income distribution. [12] From these contents, we can see that economic performance is economic growth. [13] Neoclassical growth model is used to analyze the basic characteristics of economic growth. First of all, the model assumes that resources are scarce, and individual choices reflect a group of desires, needs or preferences, which are made according to the opportunity cost. Second, the maximization hypothesis claims that individuals would rather choose more goods and services than less. Since increasing the production potential can produce more goods, the whole society will contribute part of its achievements to increase the capital stock. According to this theory, the capital stock that determines output is a function of material capital, human capital, natural resources, technology and knowledge. However, North believes that the economic growth model of neoclassical economics is problematic. He believes that this model uses unproven assumptions to explain all interesting problems, and it is only applicable to an ideal society without friction. The reason is that several important assumptions of this model cannot stand further scrutiny: first, the neoclassical growth model assumes that there is an incentive mechanism in the economy of western countries, which enables individuals to obtain social benefits from investment according to all differences, that is, private returns and social returns are equal, and externalities are not equal. Secondly, the model assumes that the income from the acquisition and utilization of new knowledge will not decrease marginally, because the stock of natural resources can increase when the cost is fixed; Third, the model assumes that savings have real income; Fourthly, the model assumes that the personal and social costs of bearing offspring are equal; Fifth, the model assumes that people's choices are consistent with the expected results. But reality contradicts these assumptions. In view of many defects of neoclassical growth model, North advocates reconstructing economic growth model. He believes that the new economic historiography needs a theory of population change, a theory of knowledge stock growth and an institutional theory to explain the historical economic growth, so as to make up for the defects of the above-mentioned neoclassical economic theory. [15] The new economic history should include the following main contents: First, the theory of economic structure. North believes that the decisive force of economic growth is composed of social politics and economic system, technology, population and ideology. The second is the institutional factors in economic growth. This is the core of North's economic growth theory. Through reinterpreting the western economic history, North concluded: "Effective economic organization is the key to economic growth; The development of an efficient economic organization in western Europe is the reason for the rise of the western world. " [16] This corrects that economists usually regard innovation, economies of scale, education and capital accumulation as the reasons for economic growth. To sum up, North made a thorough analysis of the rise of the western world by citing the economic growth theory of macroeconomics, and at the same time, combined with the historical reality of various countries, put forward new academic viewpoints, convincingly explained the reasons for the rise of the western world, making the new economic historiography explain historical events stronger than ever before. Four. After the analysis and discussion of this paper, the research content of the new economic history can be basically divided into three levels: macro, meso and micro. This division constructs a relatively clear and distinct research framework of new economic history, which makes the research thinking of new economic history clearer. However, this paper is only a preliminary idea of studying the new economic history, which is inevitably inappropriate. This paper only wants to play a role in the study of new economic history, hoping to promote the study of new economic history in the discussion.