Modernization, weather variability, and vulnerability to famine

Simone D'Alessandro ()

Oxford Economic Papers, 2011, vol. 63, issue 4, 625-647

Abstract: This paper shows that under weather variability the transformation from a rural to an incomplete market economy can increase the vulnerability of peasants to famine. This can occur even if improvements in technology have raised agricultural productivity and made production less responsive to weather variability. Indeed, negative environmental shocks can produce a drop in wages that outweighs the increase in wages due to an equivalent positive environmental shock. Consequently, the amount of grain stored increases more slowly in good seasons than it decreases in bad ones. This paper gives new insights on the catastrophic effects produced by widespread droughts in India during the second half of the 19th century. Notwithstanding the introduction of new modes of production and the modernization of infrastructures, the interaction between environmental variability and new institutional arrangements might have contributed to increase the vulnerability of peasants to famine. Copyright 2011 Oxford University Press 2011 All rights reserved, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpr014 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:oxecpp:v:63:y:2011:i:4:p:625-647

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is currently edited by James Forder and Francis J. Teal

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().