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Clan concentration among first appointees to high office
People first appointed as state councilor, minister, vice-minister, inspector-general, censor-general, chief royal secretary, provincial governor or director of the academy, grouped in 50-year periods: top-10 clan share, HHI and effective number of clans.
Puts a number on the thesis of oligarchic concentration: the top-10 clan share of high office rose from the 17th century to the early 19th, and the rise holds even under a pessimistic lower bound. Citable, provided a clan is understood to be wider than a lineage.
- Formula
- First appointment year from NIKH office records; clan from the person data, gaps filled from the examination roster (91% fill accuracy). Resampled to 247 per period with 95% intervals, plus a lower bound treating remaining gaps as distinct clans.
- How to read it
- Top-10 share rises from 0.28 (1392–1449) to 0.45 (1800–1849), more than among examination passers over the same period (0.22→0.33). The two groups differ in composition, missingness and matching, so the gap is not read as a promotion effect; that would need person-level tracking from examination to office.
- Caveats
- A clan is wider than a lineage. After 1850 the clan of 20% of appointees remains unidentified, so the last period is provisional. The 91.0% fill accuracy is the agreement rate when the same rule is applied to the 2,279 first appointees whose clan is already known (computed over agree/disagree cases only); resampling uses seed 20261101, 247 per period, 1,000 draws.
- Reliability card
- exactExact count — read straight from the source XML
| Period | First appointees | Unmatched after fill | n | Clans | Top-10 (resampled) | 95% lo | 95% hi | Lower bound | HHI | Effective clans | Top 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1392–1449 | 339 | 27.1% | 247 | 125 | 0.279 | 0.279 | 0.279 | 0.204 | 0.0144 | 69.4 | 安東權12 · 昌寧成9 · 文化柳8 · 淸州韓7 · 順興安7 |
| 1450–1499 | 405 | 23.5% | 310 | 126 | 0.323 | 0.300 | 0.348 | 0.242 | 0.0177 | 56.6 | 安東權17 · 淸州韓17 · 廣州李12 · 坡平尹8 · 韓山李8 |
| 1500–1549 | 337 | 11.0% | 300 | 132 | 0.256 | 0.235 | 0.271 | 0.220 | 0.0134 | 74.9 | 坡平尹12 · 全義李8 · 光山金8 · 安東權7 · 南陽洪7 |
| 1550–1599 | 262 | 5.3% | 248 | 106 | 0.307 | 0.304 | 0.308 | 0.290 | 0.0185 | 54.0 | 全州李18 · 安東權8 · 南陽洪8 · 坡平尹7 · 東萊鄭7 |
| 1600–1649 | 276 | 5.8% | 260 | 93 | 0.329 | 0.316 | 0.340 | 0.308 | 0.0211 | 47.5 | 全州李22 · 坡平尹8 · 海平尹8 · 延安李8 · 淸州韓7 |
| 1650–1699 | 350 | 3.7% | 337 | 101 | 0.384 | 0.356 | 0.413 | 0.363 | 0.0238 | 42.0 | 全州李29 · 驪興閔13 · 安東權12 · 德水李12 · 韓山李11 |
| 1700–1749 | 392 | 4.8% | 373 | 85 | 0.397 | 0.364 | 0.429 | 0.360 | 0.0284 | 35.2 | 全州李40 · 坡平尹14 · 慶州李13 · 豊壤趙12 · 延安李11 |
| 1750–1799 | 509 | 11.0% | 453 | 86 | 0.437 | 0.401 | 0.474 | 0.379 | 0.0298 | 33.5 | 全州李46 · 大丘徐24 · 延安李21 · 安東金17 · 東萊鄭16 |
| 1800–1849 | 407 | 8.6% | 372 | 87 | 0.450 | 0.417 | 0.486 | 0.405 | 0.0284 | 35.2 | 安東金27 · 潘南朴23 · 全州李20 · 豊壤趙18 · 大丘徐17 |
| 1850–1910 | 827 | 19.8% | 663 | 101 | 0.430 | 0.389 | 0.474 | 0.323 | 0.0287 | 34.8 | 全州李66 · 安東金38 · 豊壤趙30 · 大丘徐23 · 光山金23 |
4,104 first appointees: clan from the person table 2,839, filled from the roster 724, still unmatched 541. Fill rule accuracy on people with a known clan 91.0%. Spearman ρ of period order vs resampled share 0.90; lower bound ρ = 0.85.