贤能制度中的偏袒主义:基于对明代科举的考察

科举被认为是古代中国在贤能政治上的重要制度创新,但权力仍可能对科举的公正性造成侵蚀。本文利用明代科举数据,考察了明代权力中枢(内阁)对科举取士的影响。研究发现,内阁对科举会试阶段的影响并不显著;但在殿试阶段,与阁臣拥有相同籍贯(同府或同省异府)的考生将获得更高的甲第,并且更有可能在馆选中被选为庶吉士。阁臣中,首辅对殿试和庶吉士选拔的影响较次辅更大。研究还发现阁臣卸任之后对科举的影响即不复存在,而次辅对科举殿试的影响则随着任职时间的延长而加强。因此,顶层权力的影响导致了明代科举中地域偏袒主义的存在。

Favoritism in Meritocracy:Evidence from the Chinese Imperial Examination in Ming Dynasty

The Chinese imperial examination system was an important institutional creation that promoted meritocracy in the Imperial China.However,the impartiality of the merit-based selection process could be damaged by the top officials in the central government.This paper examines the favoritism in the imperial examination of the Ming dynasty.The results find that examinees from the same prefecture or the same province as the grand secretaries were more likely to obtain higher tiers of the jinshi degree in the palace examination and they were more likely to be selected as the interns in the Hanlin Academy,which guaranteed them more promising official careers.The senior grand secretary had larger influence than the secondary grand secretaries.The favoritism from the grand secretaries was also limited by the bureaucracy as the study finds limited influence of the grand secretaries on the lower metropolitan exams.Therefore,China’s meritocracy was impaired by the favoritism in the civil service examination system.