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1、TheInstitutionalCausesofChina’sGreatFamine,1959-1961XinMengNancyQianPierreYaredDecember29,2011AbstractThispaperstudiesthecausesofthelargestfamineinhistory,whereapproximately30millionindividualsdiedinruralChina.Basedondatafromcurrentstudies,wearguethatthedropinagg
2、regateproductionandthehighlevelofaggregateprocurementfromruralareascannotexplainthefamineontheirown.Athirdfactormusthavecausedsignificantinequalityinruralfoodretention.Thisisbecauseaverageruralfoodretentionin1959isfartoohightogenerateafamine.Wedocumenttwonovelfacts
3、.First,thereissignificantvarianceinfaminemortalityratesacrossruralregions.Second,theseruralmortalityratesarepositivelycorrelatedwithpercapitafoodproduction,asurprisingpatternthatisuniquetothefamineyears.Thissuggeststhatgovernmentredistributivepolicycontributedtothe
4、spatialvariationinfamine.Toexplaintheseresults,wedocumentthatthehistoricalgrainprocurementpolicywasinflexible–i.e.,Chinesecentralplannershaddifficultyaggregat-ingandrespondingtonewinformation.Wethenarguethattheinflexibilityofthegrainprocurementpolicytogetherwiththedro
5、pinproductionin1959canexplaintheobservedvariationinfamineseverityacrossruralareas.Keywords:Famines,ModernChineseHistory,Institutions,CentralPlanningJELClassification:P2,O43,N45WeareindebtedtoFrancescoCaselli,ananonymousco-editorandthreeanonymousrefereesforinvaluab
6、lesuggestions.WealsothankAlbertoAlesina,PhilippeAghion,AbhijitBanerjee,DaronAcemoglu,RobinBurgess,AndrewFoster,ClaudiaGoldin,MikhailGolosov,AvnerGreif,RickHornbeck,Chang-taiHsieh,DeanKarlan,MichaelKremer,JamesKung,ChristopherLeighton,CormacO’Grada,NaomiLamoureaux,
7、EmiNakamura,SureshNaidu,NathanNunn,GerardPadro-i-Miquel,ChrisUdry,DennisYangandFabrizioZillibottifortheircomments;theparticipantsattheBerkeleyDevelopmentSeminar,UCLAAppliedEconomicsSeminar,StanfordEconomicHistorySeminar,UniversityofTexasatAustinAppliedMicroSeminar
8、,UniversityofTorontoAppliedMicroSeminar,TsinghuaUniversityEconomicsSeminar,theAppliedWorkshopatCCERPKU,theEconomicsWorkshopatHongKongUniversity,theAppli