Speaker: Lecturer Sun Chengjiu

Time: 2:30 p.m., May 8th, 2025 (Thursday)

Place: Conference Room on the 8th Floor, Office Building, School of Economics

Speaker Information:

Sun Chengjiu is a lecturer at the School of Economics, Nankai University. His research interests include economic history, political economy, and development economics. He has led several research projects, including the National Social Science Fund Youth Project and the Humanities and Social Sciences Development Fund Project of Nankai University. His work has been published in several leading domestic and international journals, including Cliometrica, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and China Economic Quarterly.

More Information:

This paper examines whether moral cosmology developed by Confucian scholar-officials functioned as an accountability mechanism in imperial China. Using an original dataset, we document that solar eclipses strengthened autocracy, as evidenced by a reduced likelihood of irregular emperor removal. Although omens like eclipses were theoretically seen as Heaven’s warnings, in practice, they instead became an instrument serving those in power. Supporting this interpretation, we find that eclipses increased the probability of chancellor replacement, enabling emperors to purge dissenters or exploit factional struggles to shift blame. These findings reveal a significant gap between omen discourse theory and its political implementation.