Keynote Speaker: Wang Jianxun Discussants: Wang Zhiwei, Liu Yejin, Liu Peifeng Among the literature about economic development, people have raised kinds of theories and hypothesis. From the angle of constitutional government, Prof. Wang has studied the influence of the rules on long-time economic development in the world. Prof. Wang defined constitutional government and development as: the former means limited government, whose power is effectively restricted by the constitution and the individual’s right and freedom, is effectively protected by the constitution. Development means the increase of personal choices, which is say people has a lager fields to choose. Since we cannot get the data of generalized development, we take the GDP/ capita as the measure. Prof. Wang analyzed the constitution’s building time, process and economic situation of the main countries in the world. Compared others which haven’t set up the constitutional government, he found out that generally speaking, constitutional countries were in a higher developing step and much quicker than others. The stable and mature constitutional countries almost had become the developed and richest countries in the world. On the contrary, the non-constitutional countries were still in a low development level and a low developing speed, even stagnating for a long time. For the inside mechanism of the constitutional promoting effect, Prof. Wang pointed out two explanations: proper government structure and the basic human’s right and freedom. Through the power separation both in horizontal and vertical dimensions, the constitutional government could protect freedom, maintain the independence of justice, weaken the rent-seeking willing, reduce the managing cost, bring the competition among the local governments. The reason why China has developed in a small speed for more than 1000 years, Prof. Wang thought, the centralization is one of important reason. Thus, in order to make China in a long-time increase developing, China should set up its constitutional government. Sep. 11th, 2009 |
