Climate Shocks, Dynastic Cycles, and Nomadic Conquests: Evidence from Historical China

Qiang Chen

No 2012-01, SDU Working Papers from School of Economics, Shandong University

Abstract: Nomadic conquests have helped to shape world history, yet we know little about why they occurred. Using climate and dynastic data from historical China since 221 BCE, this study finds that the likelihood of nomadic conquest increased with less rainfall proxied by drought disasters, which drove pastoral nomads to attack agrarian Chinese for survival. Moreover, consistent with the dynastic cycle hypothesis, the likelihood of China being conquered increased when a Chinese dynasty was established earlier (and hence was weaker, on average) than a rival nomadic regime. These results survive a variety of robustness checks, including using the latitude of the Sino-nomadic border as an alternative dependent variable. The dynastic cycle effect also persists in an extension to world history. The effects of other climate shocks, such as snow, frost, and temperature anomaly, are not robust.

Keywords: Nomadic conquests; climate shocks; dynastic cycles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N4 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 49 pages
Date: 2012-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env and nep-his
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Journal Article: Climate shocks, dynastic cycles and nomadic conquests: evidence from historical China (2015)
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