The Great Chinese Famine (1959–1961) and farm households’ adoption of technology: evidence from China

Xinyan Hu, Xiangpo Chen, Siqi Yao and Gaiqing Zhang

Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, 2022, vol. 66, issue 1, 93-117

Abstract: The diffusion of new technology is an important driver of agricultural development, especially in the developing world. In this research, we follow the persistence of major historical events, employing a difference‐in‐differences method to carefully examine the long‐term effect of China’s 1959–1961 famine on farm households’ current decisions to adopt technology. Further, we combine a mediating regression procedure with a bootstrap method to explore the mechanism of impact in this relationship. Overall, this study provides strong empirical evidence that the Great Famine attenuated technology adoption; moreover, a 1% increase in exposure to famine in childhood and adolescence resulted in a 0.137% decrease in the probability of technology adoption when controlling for village dummies. An analysis of mediating effects reveals that risk preferences account for the channel of famine persistence.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8489.12444

Related works:
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:bla:ajarec:v:66:y:2022:i:1:p:93-117

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://ordering.onli ... 1111/(ISSN)1467-8489

Access Statistics for this article

Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics is currently edited by John Rolfe, Lin Crase and John Tisdell

More articles in Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics from Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().