The Potato's Contribution to Population and Urbanization: Evidence from an Historical Experiment

Nancy Qian and Nathan Nunn

No 7364, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We exploit regional variation in suitability for cultivating potatoes, together with time variation arising from their introduction to the Old World from the Americas, to estimate the impact of potatoes on Old World population and urbanization. Our results show that the introduction of the potato was responsible for a significant portion of the increase in population and urbanization observed during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Keywords: Potato; Columbian exchange; Demography; agriculture; Economic development; Industrialization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 N1 N5 O14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7364 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: The Potato's Contribution to Population and Urbanization: Evidence From A Historical Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: The Potato's Contribution to Population and Urbanization: Evidence From A Historical Experiment (2011)
Working Paper: The Potato's Contribution to Population and Urbanization: Evidence from an Historical Experiment (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7364

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP7364

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().