Asset Portfolios of Elite Households in Qing China: A Study Based on Historical Property-confiscation Archives

Abstract

This paper contributes to our general understanding of elite households' asset holdings during the Qing Dynasty by looking at official asset holdings reports for property-confiscation cases. A required practice during the Qing was that when an official or businessman was punished for wrong-doing and if his household assets were confiscated, the investigator had to file a detailed report of all assets held by his household. Records of these reports were kept at the Imperial Household Department (neiwufu). By searching through archives at the First Historical Archives of China and other sources, we have collected a sample of 185 such confiscation cases, including data on land and house ownership as well as other latent variables such as loan and pawn shops owned and covering the 18th and 19th century. This sample presents a picture of how elite household asset portfolio structures evolved in Qing China. Our study shows that collecting luxury goods was far more common among municipal elites and financial assets were only a small part in their asset portfolios. Property ownership was found to be their most-preferred form of investment, but the fraction of wealth invested in land and real property would decline with wealth once the level of wealth was above a certain point.​