The Needham's Puzzle based on Explanation of the Imperial Examinations System, Human Capital Accumulation and Long-term Economic Growth

This paper attempted a perspective of the imperial examination system in ancient China and human capital accumulation. A kind of new explanatory hypothesis of the Needham's Puzzle was proposed then: The different system of China and Europe resulted in the diverse path of human capital accumulation, which yielded the discrepancy of economic results as well. The purpose of the imperial examination system in ancient China was that the high talented group was selected to work in public management department and other groups with lower intelligence worked in general production department. On the contrary, Europe had been dominated under the feudal system so that groups worked in two departments randomly. The economic level was higher, by contrast, during the earlier times in China. However, the accumulation of human capital in the general production department was slow that caused slower economic growth. European had been surpassed Chinese finally.