American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 100 (May 2010): 135–140
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.100.2.135
Development, Culture, and Institutions †
Cultural and Institutional Bifurcation:
China and Europe Compared
By Avner Greif and Guido Tabellini*
How to sustain cooperation is a key challenge
for any society. Different social organizations
have evolved in the course of history to cope with
this challenge by relying on different combina-
tions of external (formal and informal) enforce-
ment institutions and intrinsic motivation. Some
societies rely more on informal enforcement
and moral obligations within their constituting
groups. Others rely more on formal enforcement
and general moral obligations towards society at
large. How do culture and institutions interact
in generating different evolutionary trajectories
of societal organizations? Do contemporary atti-
tudes, institutions, and behavior reflect distinct
pre-modern trajectories?
This paper addresses these questions by
examining the bifurcation in the societal orga-
nizations of pre-modern China and Europe.
It focuses on their distinct epitomizing social
structures, the clan and the city, that sustain
cooperation through different mixes of enforce-
ment and intrinsic motivation. The Chinese
clan is a kinship-based hierarchical organiza-
tion in which strong moral ties and reputation
among clan members are particularly important
in sustaining cooperation. In Medieval Europe,
by contrast, the main example of a coopera-
tive organization is the city. Here cooperation
is across kinship lines and external enforcement
plays a bigger role. But morality and reputation,
†
Discussants: Carol Shiue, University of Colorado;
Roland Benabou, Princeton University; Murat Iyigun,
University of Colorado.
* Greif: Stanford University, Department of Economics,
Stanford, CA 94305 (e-mail: Avner@stanford.edu);
Tabellini: Universita’ L. Bocconi. Via Sarfatti, 25. 20136
Milano, Italy (e-mail: Guido.Tabellini@unibocconi.it). We
thank CIFAR and the ERC for financial support, and Debin
Ma and Carol Shiue for comments.
135
although weaker, also matter and extend beyond
one’s kin.
The analysis exposes the impact of different
initial moral systems and kinship organizations
on China’s and Europe’s distinct cultural and
institutional trajectories during the last millen-
nium. These initial conditions influenced sub-
sequent evolution through complementarities
between moral systems and institutions. The
implied social relations, moral obligations, and
enforcement capacity further influenced the
interactions with other external organizations
(such as other cities or clans, or higher state
authority), which further reinforced the distinct
trajectories.
This paper’s historical and comparative insti-
tutional analysis is based on the model in Avner
Greif and Guido Tabellini (2010). It combines
the analysis of generalized and limited moral-
ity (Tabellini 2008) with the analysis of the
evolution of institutional complexes composed
of complementary institutional and cultural ele-
ments (Greif 2006b, ch. 7). A comparable anal-
ysis of the impact of initial beliefs and social
structures is provided by Greif (1994, 2006b,
ch 9).
Section I presents a conceptual framework to
explain why these two civilizations took differ-
ent paths. Section II presents supporting histori-
cal evidence consistent with this explanation.
Section III presents evidence on the persistent
impact of these distinct societal organizations.
I.  How to Support Cooperation: Clan versus City
This section presents a conceptual framework
to examine the evolution of distinct ways to
sustain cooperation. It focuses on interactions
among individuals and, consistent with the his-
torical evidence, on clans and cities as means to
achieve cooperation. To facilitate the ­discussion,
136 AEA PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS
we ignore other actors such as the state and reli-
gious authorities to which we return in the his-
torical discussion.
The clan (lineage) is a kinship-based commu-
nity its members identify with and are loyal to.
Cooperation within the clan is sustained mainly
by moral obligations and reputational incen-
tives that discourage cheating and free riding.
Enforcement through formal institutions plays a
small role. By contrast, the city is composed of
members of many lineages, and formal enforce-
ment is more important in sustaining coopera-
tion. Morality also plays a role; however, moral
obligations within the city have a wider scope
but a weaker intensity. They have wider scope in
that they apply to everyone and not just towards
friends or relatives, and they have weaker inten-
sity in motivating less cooperation compared
to moral obligations within clans. Hence, at
least some external enforcement is needed to
sustain cooperation. In terms of economic effi-
ciency, these two social arrangements have clear
tradeoffs. The clan economizes on enforce-
ment costs, whereas the city can exploit econ-
omies of scale because it sustains cooperation
among a larger and more heterogeneous set of
individuals.
How could such different arrangements have
evolved? There are two parts to the answer. One
part views the evolution of the clan and the city
as the result of optimal decisions by individuals
with a given morality (i.e., preferences). Suppose
individuals can choose where to interact with
others, either within their clan or within the city.
Interacting can either refer to bilateral exchange
or to public good provision. Individuals with
a strong clan identity are more attracted to the
clan because they draw a stronger psychological
reward from intra-clan cooperation. The attrac-
tiveness of the clan versus city, however, also
depends on their sizes because of economies or
diseconomies of scale. A smaller organization
is less attractive because economies of scale
are not fully exploited. But an excessively large
organization suffers from congestion externali-
ties or diseconomies of scale in the enforcement
of cooperation.
The preference composition within the orga-
nization also matters. A clan is more efficient,
and hence more attractive, as the fraction of
its members with a strong sense of clan iden-
tity increases. Similarly, the city is more effi-
cient and attractive if more of its citizens value
MAY 2010
c­ ooperation with non-kin and if they respect
the formal institutions that regulate their social
interactions.
Although multiple equilibria are possible,
clans are more likely to emerge in a society
dominated by clan loyalty, because they are
more efficient and thus more attractive. Clan
loyalty would not support cooperation among
the heterogeneous community in the city. By
contrast, a city is more likely to emerge as the
main social organization in a society where
moral obligations have wider scope than just
clan affiliation. In other words, the diffusion of
specific values in the society explains the emer-
gence of one organizational form over another.
The second part of the answer concerns cul-
tural transmission. A society in which coopera-
tion occurs within the clan is likely to foster
clan loyalty, in both scope and intensity. By
contrast, cooperation within a large and het-
erogeneous population and formal institutions
foster generalized morality and respect for the
procedures and formal institutions that regulate
social interactions in the city. In other words,
values evolve to reflect the prevailing social
arrangements. The emergence of one moral
system or another is explained by the dis-
tinct initial distribution of individuals across
organizations.
Combining these two parts yields the possi-
bility of cultural and institutional bifurcations.
Clearly, whether a bifurcation emerges or per-
sists can also depend on other variables, such
as the type of public good to be provided (how
rapidly its economies of scale decrease), or the
extent of gains from trading with a larger com-
munity. Yet, two otherwise identical societies
that differ only in the initial distributions of val-
ues and social heterogeneity can evolve along
different self-reinforcing trajectories of both
cultural traits and organizational forms.
II.  History
The collapse of the Chinese Han dynasty and
the Roman Empire (after 220 CE) were turning
points in the cultural and institutional evolution
of China and Europe respectively. The politi-
cal and religious processes that followed led to
distinct initial conditions when these societies
eventually recovered. The evidence indicates
subsequent bifurcation consistent with our con-
ceptual framework.
VOL. 100 NO. 2 Cultural and Institutional Bifurcation: China and Europe Compared
A. Initial Conditions
Large kinship groups were common in most
early societies. Yet, on the eve of the urban
expansion in China and Europe circa 1000 CE,
large kinship organizations were common in the
former but not the latter. This distinction can be
taken as an initial condition because it reflects
political and religious process exogenous to the
dynamics we examine.
In China, the Han dynasty came to power
while advocating Confucianism as an alterna-
tive to the Legalism of the previous Qin dynasty.
Confucianism considers moral obligations
among kin as the basis for social order, while
Legalism emphasizes legal obligations. After
the collapse of the Han dynasty and the division
of China to rival states, Buddhism gained popu-
larity. It undermined large kinship organizations
by emphasizing the individual, monastic life
and the religious community. Not surprisingly,
Buddhism was particularly promoted by the
many non-ethnic Chinese rulers of the various
states that emerged in China.
The ethnically Chinese Tang dynasty
(618–907) that reunified China initially also
promoted Buddhism. Eventually, however, it
turned against it and, among other measures,
destroyed thousands of Buddhist monasteries
and temples in 845. Confucian scholars had also
responded by formulating the so called Neo-
Confucianism that was more appealing to the
masses, while Buddhism was similarly reformu-
lated to be more consistent with Confucian prin-
ciples regarding kinship. Kinship structures thus
survived and “the clan as a Chinese institution
in the pre-modern period … prevailed some 800
years, beginning with the Sung dynasty [960–
1279]” (John C. Fei and Ts’ui-Jung Liu 1982,
393). Detailed information on the share of the
population with lineage affiliation is not avail-
able, but it was highest in the south and lowest
in the north.
In Europe, the Germanic invasion of the
Roman Empire initially reinforced tribalism.
In the early (post-Roman) German legal codes
an individual had rights only by affiliation
with a large kinship group. As is well known,
tribal tendencies were gradually undone by the
Church which, in addition to generalized moral-
ity, advanced a marriage dogma that undermined
large kinship organizations (cf. Greif 2006a).
The Church discouraged practices that sustain
137
kinship groups, such as adoption, polygamy,
concubinage, marriages among distant kin, and
marriages without the woman’s consent. By the
ninth century the nuclear family predominated.
Legal codes, for example, no longer linked rights
and kinship. Large kinship groups remained
only on Europe’s social and geographical mar-
gins (e.g., Scotland).
Summarizing, in China circa 1000, large kin-
ship organizations prevailed and obligations to
kin were stressed, while in Europe such organi-
zations were rare, and generalized morality was
stressed. These differences were due to political
and religious processes.
B. Subsequent Evolution
Subsequent cultural and institutional evolu-
tion reflects these different initial conditions, in
accordance with the ideas of the previous sec-
tion. The length of this paper restricts elaborat-
ing on this evidence, and we thus focus on the
period of urbanization and growth that occurred
in both China and Europe between the eleventh
and the mid-fourteenth centuries.
Clans remained “the predominant form of
kinship organizations in late imperial China”
(Ebrey, P. Buckley and James L. Watson 1986).
Clans provided their members with education,
religious services, relief from poverty, and other
local public goods. Cooperation was sustained
by intrinsic motivation and reputation supple-
mented by formal, intra-clan mechanisms for
dispute resolution. The objective was not to
enforce an abstract moral law but to arbitrate a
compromise.
If clans did economize on enforcement cost,
the state should have created complementary
institutions to pursue its objectives. Indeed, clans
were responsible for tax collection, the conduct
of their members, and the training of candidates
for the civil service exams. Because it benefited
from the clan, the state reinforced intra-clan
cohesion by rules, such as linking land-purchase
rights to local clans’ membership, and by pro-
moting Neo-Confucianism in which “the family
was given a metaphysical foundation, and filial
piety was promoted” (T. Ruskola 2000, 1622).
Intra-clan enforcement reduced the need for
formal enforcement institutions. Moreover,
a legal system would have undermined the
clans, an outcome opposed by the elders who
­controlled the clans and by the state that used
138 AEA PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS
them. Indeed, clan rules regularly discouraged
litigation and favored arbitration provided by
the clan (Hui-Chen Wang Liu 1959). Similarly,
the Chinese state encouraged intra-clan dispute
resolution and did not articulate a commercial
code until the late nineteenth century. There was
no separate legal branch in the Chinese admin-
istration, and administrators were penalized for
a wrong verdict. Civil adjudication was aimed at
finding a compromise, with the notable excep-
tion of enforcing legal rights over taxable land.
Clan loyalty and the absence of formal,
impartial enforcement limited inter-clan cooper-
ation. Indeed, although “friendship is one of the
five ethical relationships [in Confucianism] and
should not be disregarded, yet [clan rules often
state that] one must be very careful about it” (Liu
1959, 148). About 95 percent of clan rules call
for care in selecting friends, while only 8 per-
cent call for “helping a friend in trouble” (ibid).
Institutions governing trade reflect the resulting
limited inter-clan interactions. The “dominant
form” of organizing long-distance trade was
clan and regional merchant groups (Debin Ma
2004, 267) that relied on moral obligations and
reputation among specific individuals related by
kinship or place of residence.
There were, obviously, cities in China. Yet,
intra-clan loyalty and interactions limited
urbanization, city size, and self-governance.
Considering large cities, China’s urbanization
rate remained between three and four percent
from the eleventh to the nineteenth century, while
the initially lower urbanization rate in Europe
rose to about ten percent. Including small cites,
urbanization rates were comparable, but China’s
small cities were venues for cooperation among
members of local clans rather then their melt-
ing pot. While the European cities gained self-
governance, this did not happen in China until
the modern period.
The lack of self-governed cities in China
was not simply due to the power of the state,
but also due to pervasive kinship structure that
facilitated state control over cities. Immigrants
to cities remained affiliated with their rural kin-
ship groups. As late as the seventeenth century,
“the majority of a city’s population consisted of
so-called sojourners, people who had come from
elsewhere and were considered (and thought of
themselves as) only temporary residents … sus-
picions were always rife that sojourners could
not be trusted” (John Friedmann 2007, 274).
MAY 2010
Guild-like organizations (huiguan) extended
the reach of the rural clans into the city, and in
order to be a member it was necessary to belong
to a particular place of origin (Christine Moll-
Murata 2008).
In Europe, in contrast, generalized moral-
ity and the absence of kin groups by the tenth
century led to a distinct trajectory of societal
organization (Greif 2005, 2006a). Europe, at the
time, was under attack, and both the Church and
states were weak. Individuals created cities with
the support of the Church and secular rulers.
Residents organized themselves across kinship
lines based on their interests, and economies
of scale motivated immigrants who integrated
with the existing population. Cities were there-
fore motivated to foster the Christian dogma of
moral obligations toward non-kin. Cooperation
among relatively large populations enabled most
cities in Western Europe to gain self-governance
by 1350.
Formal, legal enforcement supported intra-
city, inter-lineage cooperation. The evidence
reflects transitions from “handshakes” to con-
tracts, and from electing voluntary judges rely-
ing on customary law to professional judges’
relying on a formal legal code. There was a
large investment in legal infrastructure, and the
number of legal professionals such as judges,
attorneys, scribes, and notaries increased.
Organizations (such as guilds) that provided
club-goods also fostered cooperation among
non-kin by the threat of exclusion. Enforcement
costs were nevertheless high, and both the crime
rate and “policemen” per capita were higher in
large pre-modern European cities than in con-
temporary ones. The role of moral commitment
to fulfilling contractual obligations, however, is
suggested by widespread use of contracts that
could not be legally enforced, such as contracts
to create self-governed cities and to defraud
another by no more than a given amount.
Intra-city cooperation enabled cities to pro-
vide local public goods. European rulers found
it cost effective to harness cities’ administrative
capacity in reasserting their power (Greif 2005).
Cities collected taxes, provided navies, fought in
wars, and administered justice on behalf of the
state. Self-governed cities thereby restricted the
power of monarchs to an extent beyond clans’
capacity. Intra-city formal enforcement sup-
ported intercity impersonal exchange through
the Community Responsibility System, under
VOL. 100 NO. 2 Cultural and Institutional Bifurcation: China and Europe Compared
which all members of a city were liable for a
default by any one of them on an intercity con-
tractual obligation (Greif 2006b). Impersonal
exchange, in turn, reinforced generalized
morality.
III.  China and Europe—Contemporary
Distinctions
In subsequent centuries significant institu-
tional and cultural changes took place in both
Europe and China. In particular, the rise of the
West engendered a major backlash (including
the Communist Revolution) against Chinese tra-
ditions. Yet, although institutions were changed,
cultural traits persisted, and economic arrange-
ments continue to reflect different traditions.
Even today, kinship groups remain a more
important conduit for economic exchange in
China. Chinese family firms are common,
and in China “you trust your family abso-
lutely, your friends and acquaintances to the
degree that mutual dependence has been estab-
lished.  … With everybody else you make no
assumptions about their good will” (Gordon S.
Redding 1993, 66). Business relations are per-
sonal and based on networking, guanxi, which
means social connections and is a synonym for
special favors and obligations. Networking,
in turn, reinforces limited morality. “To make
such networks operate reliably, Chinese soci-
ety has come to attach central importance to the
notion of trust. What is Chinese about this trust,
however, is that it is … limited to the partners
in the bond. It works on the basis of personal
obligations, the maintenance of reputation and
face, and not on any assumption that a society’s
shared faith makes all who share it equally righ-
teous regardless of whether you know them or
not” (Redding 1993, 67).
The World Value Survey (WVS, 2005–8)
reveals that only 11.3 percent of Chinese trust
a person whom they met for the first time com-
pared to between 26.1 percent to 49.3 percent
in the West (i.e., France, Great Britain, United
States and Germany). Friendship is “very impor-
tant” to less than 30 percent of Chinese but, on
average, to almost 60 percent in the West. In the
United States, the level of trust toward strangers
exceeds 60 percent; in China it is less than 40
percent (Roland Inglehart, et al 1998). Similarly,
outside of China proper, Chinese business-
men perceive Westerners as more ­reliable in
139
c­ ontractual obligations. For example, a 1994–5
survey of Chinese businessmen in Thailand and
Hong Kong finds that “Westerners are consid-
ered [by the Chinese] to be attractive partners
for … their respect for the law and keeping of
promises. Trustworthiness is a frequently men-
tioned trading attribute of non-Asians” (T.R.
Pyatt and S.G. Redding 2000, 59). Indeed, the
Hong Kong Chinese businessmen consider the
Thai Chinese no more trustworthy and more
opportunistic than Westerners.
The preliminary research discussed in this
paper highlights that pre-modern China and
Europe were evolving along distinct trajecto-
ries. One implication is the need to study their
potentially distinct capacities in bringing about
the modern economy and adjusting to it. More
generally, the paper highlights that indigenous
institutions and culture interrelate to constitute a
coherent whole. The implied complementarities
contribute to institutional persistence and can
hinder inter-society institutional transfer.
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