On the Qing Tributary System from the Per-spective of Transaction Cost

Abstract

The Qing tributary system, which is centered on China, has been regarded as a universally acknowledged and distinguished regional order in pre-modern East Asian. This system is made up of a series of informal, formal institutions and the system of governance. Such system can get a good explanation by using the transaction cost theory of new institutional economics. It is obvious that the available literature about the tributary system rarely involves transaction cost theory; so this paper tries to analyze the Qing tributary system from this perspective and break the traditional analytical paradigm of international relations scholars, and then tries to build and sum up the two explainable models about the system of rising and recession.