Given China's rapid development it is always useful to look back in time to assess where China has come from to know where it is going.
Rare Photographs of China in the 1800s [Environmental Graffiti]
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Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Friday, 8 October 2010
The great 1959-1961 famine
You have to hope that economists also read history books.
The book below is one of the best books I have ever read. It comes highly recommended for those interested in China and Chinese economics.
If one was to read this book and then read the paper below you might arrive at a different conclusion as to the cause of the great famine.
The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959-61
Xin Meng
Australian National University - Department of Economics; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Nancy Qian
Yale University - Department of Economics
Pierre Yared
Columbia University - Graduate School of Business
September 2010
NBER Working Paper No. w16361
Abstract:
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.
The following book deals directly with the famine. The title gives it away.
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The book below is one of the best books I have ever read. It comes highly recommended for those interested in China and Chinese economics.
If one was to read this book and then read the paper below you might arrive at a different conclusion as to the cause of the great famine.
The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959-61
Xin Meng
Australian National University - Department of Economics; Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
Nancy Qian
Yale University - Department of Economics
Pierre Yared
Columbia University - Graduate School of Business
September 2010
NBER Working Paper No. w16361
Abstract:
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.
The following book deals directly with the famine. The title gives it away.
.
.
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