Malthus Goes to China: The Effect of Positive Checks on Grain Market Development, 1736-1910

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fudan University; University of Hong Kong; University of Hong Kong
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050721000437
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 1137-1172
• 关键词: economic-growth; integration; EFFICIENCY; geography; Europe; GLOBALIZATION; CONVERGENCE; population; british; TRADE

摘要

After peaking around the mid-eighteenth century, grain market integration in China declined by a colossal 80 percent amid a twofold increase in population and remained at low levels for well over a century. Markets only resumed their growth momentum after the largest peasant revolt-the Taiping Rebellion-wiped out roughly one-sixth of the Chinese population starting 1851. This U-shaped pattern of grain market integration distinguished China from Europe in their trajectories of market development. Using grain prices to divide China into grain-deficit and grainsurplus regions, we find that the negative relationship between population growth and market integration originated from the grain-surplus-cum-exporting regions.