'The Last, the Most Dreadful Resource of Nature’: Economic-historical Reflections on Famine

Cormac Ó Gráda

No 201603, Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin

Abstract: The lecture paper focuses on some topics that remain current in famine studies. First, it reviews the link between food prices and the severity of famines as reflected in excess mortality. Second, it places the death tolls from several recent famines in sub-Saharan Africa in historical context. Third, it reviews the impact of famines on fertility. Famines are always associated with a reduction in births; but to what extent are those births lost or births postponed? Fourth, it reviews the literature that invokes famines as a testing ground for the foetal origins hypothesis. Finally, it reviews the prospect of a near future in which famines have been consigned to history.

Keywords: Famine; Malnutrition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J13 N1 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-his
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10197/7617 First version, 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: “The Last, the Most Dreadful Resource of Nature”: Economic-Historical Reflections on Famine (2016)
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:ucn:wpaper:201603

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from School of Economics, University College Dublin Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nicolas Clifton ().