The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959-61 / Xin Meng, Nancy Qian, Pierre Yared.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Meng, Xin.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Qian, Nancy.

Yared, Pierre.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w16361.

NBER working paper series no. w16361

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2010.

Summary:

This paper investigates the institutional causes of China's Great Famine. It presents two empirical findings: 1) in 1959, when the famine began, food production was almost three times more than population subsistence needs; and 2) regions with higher per capita food production that year suffered higher famine mortality rates, a surprising reversal of a typically negative correlation. A simple model based on historical institutional details shows that these patterns are consistent with the policy outcomes in a centrally planned economy in which the government is unable to easily collect and respond to new information in the presence of an aggregate shock to production.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2010.