The shaping of an institutional choice: Weather shocks, the Great Leap Famine, and agricultural decollectivization in ChinaYing Bai and James Kung () Explorations in Economic History, 2014, vol. 54, issue C, 1-26 Abstract: By providing more public goods (irrigation), collective agriculture can deal with negative weather shocks more effectively. Yet, collective institutions are fraught with problems of work incentives, excessive grain procurement, and the like, which in one extreme historical instance had resulted in great tragedy—China's Great Leap Famine. By exploiting the variation in the pace of agricultural decollectivization among the Chinese provinces during 1978–1984, we test the respective effects of weather shocks, the lasting impact of the Great Leap Famine, and public goods provision on the villages' institutional choice between collective and family farming. We find that bad weather at the time of decollectivization had the likely effect of strengthening the collectives, but that effect reverses in provinces that had experienced greater famine severity or had enjoyed better public goods provision. Keywords: Weather shocks; Great Leap Famine; Public goods; Institutional change; Decollectivization; China (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:exehis:v:54:y:2014:i:c:p:1-26 DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2014.06.001 Access Statistics for this article Explorations in Economic History is currently edited by R.H. Steckel More articles in Explorations in Economic History from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.