Interesting. So instability started at that time and continued even though the canal continued. One explanation could be that the closure “lit the match” which ignited disruption and caused a chain reaction plunging the region into instability. It seems unlikely to me also but basically instability occurred for two decades from around that point. Probably something more going on than the one dimensional picture of a canal closing.
Cond. Accepted AER article distorts history to get DID right
-
Another possibility is that the damage from the 1826 closure had a ripple effect if men lost jobs at that time which could not be recovered or thousands of people were thrust into poverty and starvation without recovering. Again it may be unlikely but there is something going on around that time in near-canal counties. Its possible that the closure is conflated with our trade reforms that affected these counties specifically.
-
Or maybe should find some actual historians to tell us what was going on from 1826 to 1840, so that one can get a more comprehensive narrative and then check the canal thing. A simple step is to ask- did other provinces that had nothing to do with the canal have similar instability in the same period?
-
Or maybe should find some actual historians to tell us what was going on from 1826 to 1840, so that one can get a more comprehensive narrative and then check the canal thing. A simple step is to ask- did other provinces that had nothing to do with the canal have similar instability in the same period?
The guy who posted this on twitter has a PhD in history from Yale and he is an expert in Chinese history.
-
He is also a full prof at Yale Law and Yale history, and has written two books on Qing history, both published by the Cambridge University Press.
Or maybe should find some actual historians to tell us what was going on from 1826 to 1840, so that one can get a more comprehensive narrative and then check the canal thing. A simple step is to ask- did other provinces that had nothing to do with the canal have similar instability in the same period?
The guy who posted this on twitter has a PhD in history from Yale and he is an expert in Chinese history.
-
"Exactly. This was a very clear flaw when I first saw the paper several years ago. Their referees probably aren't experts of Chinese history, otherwise this is really quite obvious."
Did you tell them several years ago when you saw their paper? Maybe you thought somebody else would, but with this kind of thing it's quite possible nobody ever told them. Once they closed their history book, they probably never looked at another book again and just did econometrics.
-
The authors cited a book multiple times by a Chinese historian is who an expert on the canal, and that book is very clear about the canal closing only for a year. They either did not read it, or decided this was not a problem.
"Exactly. This was a very clear flaw when I first saw the paper several years ago. Their referees probably aren't experts of Chinese history, otherwise this is really quite obvious."
Did you tell them several years ago when you saw their paper? Maybe you thought somebody else would, but with this kind of thing it's quite possible nobody ever told them. Once they closed their history book, they probably never looked at another book again and just did econometrics. -
yes I totally agree with you, I'm just waiting for alternative narratives
He is also a full prof at Yale Law and Yale history, and has written two books on Qing history, both published by the Cambridge University Press.
Or maybe should find some actual historians to tell us what was going on from 1826 to 1840, so that one can get a more comprehensive narrative and then check the canal thing. A simple step is to ask- did other provinces that had nothing to do with the canal have similar instability in the same period?
The guy who posted this on twitter has a PhD in history from Yale and he is an expert in Chinese history.
-
I also noticed those superficial citations. That guy literally wrote tons of papers/books on this topic in the early 2000s. Time to recycle some ancient ideas from non-English speaking historians and try the AER
The authors cited a book multiple times by a Chinese historian is who an expert on the canal, and that book is very clear about the canal closing only for a year. They either did not read it, or decided this was not a problem.
"Exactly. This was a very clear flaw when I first saw the paper several years ago. Their referees probably aren't experts of Chinese history, otherwise this is really quite obvious."
Did you tell them several years ago when you saw their paper? Maybe you thought somebody else would, but with this kind of thing it's quite possible nobody ever told them. Once they closed their history book, they probably never looked at another book again and just did econometrics.
-
The authors cited a book multiple times by a Chinese historian is who an expert on the canal, and that book is very clear about the canal closing only for a year. They either did not read it, or decided this was not a problem.
They never mention in the paper that the canal was only closed for a year. Instead, they go at length arguing that the closure of the canal is a gradual process and 1826 really marks the beginning, as if more and more portions of canals were closed since 1826. Not really my area of expertise, but that’s just what I found after skimming the paper.
-
The authors cited a book multiple times by a Chinese historian is who an expert on the canal, and that book is very clear about the canal closing only for a year. They either did not read it, or decided this was not a problem.
They never mention in the paper that the canal was only closed for a year. Instead, they go at length arguing that the closure of the canal is a gradual process and 1826 really marks the beginning, as if more and more portions of canals were closed since 1826. Not really my area of expertise, but that’s just what I found after skimming the paper.
Yes, you are absolutely right. They made it sound like the closure was a treatment that intensified over time. This looks very like a deliberate attempt to fool the referees.
-
Not looking good for Shuo Chen, whose coauthored article with his advisor in the APSR was fraudulent. They reported results from "fixed effects regressions" in the paper, but these coefficients were actually estimated without using FEs. Adding FEs completely kills their main result. Some polisci guys wrote an article about other serious issues in that paper
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13603116.2014.882560