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The Recognition of Financial Experts in an Early Fiscal State: A Study on the Financial Officials of the Sung Empire, including a Quantitative Analysis

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Date

2025

Authors

Ma, Lin

Supervisor

Rahman, Asheq
Narayan, Anil
Nguyen, Lisa

Item type

Thesis

Degree name

Doctor of Philosophy

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Publisher

Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

Existing literature establishes that the professional conduct of modern Chinese accounting professionals differs fundamentally from that of their Western counterparts. While the current authoritarian institutions may offer an explanation for the difference, this thesis traces the origins of such institutions to the Sung Empire to discover more deep-rooted reasons for the difference. Unlike Western civilisations, which developed the rule of law and governmental accountability before establishing mature fiscal states, the Sung Empire constructed a fiscal state in the absence of democracy, accountable governance, or a broadly literate population. Using geopolitical analysis grounded in Selectorate Theory, this study demonstrates that the persistent threat from nomadic polities compelled the Sung Empire to develop a fiscal state under emergency conditions. This necessity drove the empire to proactively recruit and incentivise its limited literate population, transforming them into financial experts essential for state administration. Drawing on archival sources, this study shows that these financial experts played a crucial role in key functions, including tax collection, centralised treasury management, payroll administration for the standing army, and bookkeeping and auditing to support fiscal operations. To evaluate the effectiveness of the empire’s strategies in incentivising financial experts, this thesis employs interactionism, integrating ERG (Existence, Relatedness, Growth) theory to construct a framework for assessing their professional recognition. Quantitative methods and network analysis are applied to data from the China Biographical Database to measure the level of recognition these experts received. The findings indicate that financial experts were not only better remunerated but also more socially connected than general officials. Additionally, they were systematically favoured in candidate selection for key financial positions. Overall, the results suggest that financial experts in the Sung Empire occupied a status analogous to modern professionals, falling just short of official recognition, as predicted by Selectorate Theory. These findings highlight the Sung Empire’s success in mobilising financial talent to sustain a fiscal state, ultimately shaping the asymmetric power dynamic between emperors and their supporters. This absolutist structure compelled the literati to adjust their ideological framework, fostering the development of authoritarian institutions that later influenced the cultural context underpinning the behaviour of modern Chinese professionals.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10292/19488

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Doctoral Theses