IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/wpaper/201803.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Famine and Disease in Economic History: A Summary Introduction

Author

Listed:
  • Guido Alfani
  • Cormac Ó Gráda

Abstract

Understanding mortality crises is an important part of understanding some fundamental aspects of preindustrial economies. Understanding the processes leading to their decline and the associated improvements in living standards and life expectancy is a precondition for knowing what is needed to prevent the re-emergence of widespread famine and lethal infectious disease. This short paper introduces a field in which policy makers and economists need to carefully consider the past, before making assumptions about the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Guido Alfani & Cormac Ó Gráda, 2018. "Famine and Disease in Economic History: A Summary Introduction," Working Papers 201803, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201803
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/9444
    File Function: First version, 2018
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alfani, Guido & Murphy, Tommy E., 2017. "Plague and Lethal Epidemics in the Pre-Industrial World," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 314-343, March.
    2. Neil Cummins & Morgan Kelly & Cormac Ó Gráda, 2016. "Living standards and plague in London, 1560–1665," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(1), pages 3-34, February.
    3. Nico Voigtländer & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2012. "Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1339-1392.
    4. Bruce M. S. Campbell, 2010. "Nature as historical protagonist: environment and society in pre‐industrial England," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(2), pages 281-314, May.
    5. Domar, Evsey D., 1970. "The Causes of Slavery or Serfdom: A Hypothesis," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 18-32, March.
    6. Fogel,Robert William, 2004. "The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521004886.
    7. Guido Alfani & Marco Percoco, 2019. "Plague and long‐term development: the lasting effects of the 1629–30 epidemic on the Italian cities," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(4), pages 1175-1201, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Arnstein Aassve & Guido Alfani & Francesco Gandolfi & Marco Le Moglie, 2021. "Epidemics and trust: The case of the Spanish Flu," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 840-857, April.
    2. Beniamino Callegari & Christophe Feder, 2022. "The long-term economic effects of pandemics: toward an evolutionary approach [Epidemics and trust: the case of the Spanish flu]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 31(3), pages 715-735.
    3. Börner, Lars & Severgnini, Battista, 2011. "Epidemic trade," Discussion Papers 2011/12, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    4. Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo, 2020. "COVID-19, Race, and Redlining," GLO Discussion Paper Series 603, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    5. Alfani, Guido & Di Tullio, M & Fochesato, M, 2020. "The determinants of wealth inequality in the Republic of Venice (1400-1800)," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 483, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    6. Fabian Siuda & Uwe Sunde, 2021. "Disease and demographic development: the legacy of the plague," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 1-30, March.
    7. Guido Alfani, 2022. "Epidemics, Inequality, and Poverty in Preindustrial and Early Industrial Times," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 3-40, March.
    8. Graziella Bertocchi & Arcangelo Dimico, 2020. "COVID-19, Race, and Redlining," Department of Economics 0175, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    9. Utteeyo Dasgupta & Chandan Kumar Jha & Sudipta Sarangi, 2021. "Persistent Patterns Of Behavior: Two Infectious Disease Outbreaks 350 Years Apart," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(2), pages 848-857, April.
    10. Federico, Giovanni & Bisin, Alberto, 2021. "Merger or acquisition? An introduction to the Handbook of Historical economics," CEPR Discussion Papers 15795, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Masciandaro, Donato & Goodhart, Charles & Ugolini, Stefano, 2021. "Pandemic recession and helicopter money: Venice, 1629–1631," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(3), pages 300-318, December.
    12. Remi Jedwab & Noel D. Johnson & Mark Koyama, 2022. "The Economic Impact of the Black Death," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 132-178, March.
    13. Bas Bavel & Marten Scheffer, 2021. "Historical effects of shocks on inequality: the great leveler revisited," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    14. Alfani, Guido, 2020. "Pandemics and asymmetric shocks: evidence from the history of plague in Europe and the Mediterranean," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 478, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    15. Fochesato, Mattia, 2018. "Origins of Europe’s north-south divide: Population changes, real wages and the ‘little divergence’ in early modern Europe," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 91-131.
    16. Adham Sayed & Bin Peng, 2021. "Pandemics and income inequality: a historical review," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(4), pages 1-17, April.
    17. José Luis Martínez-González & Jordi Suriñach & Gabriel Jover & Javier Martín-Vide & Mariano Barriendos-Vallvé & Enric Tello, 2020. "Assessing climate impacts on English economic growth (1645–1740): an econometric approach," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 160(2), pages 233-249, May.
    18. Johannes Buggle & Thierry Mayer & Seyhun Orcan Sakalli & Mathias Thoenig, 2023. "The Refugee’s Dilemma: Evidence from Jewish Migration out of Nazi Germany," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(2), pages 1273-1345.
    19. Sascha O. Becker, Sascha O & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2023. "From the Death of God to the Rise of Hitler," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1478, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    20. Mayshar, Joram & Moav, Omer & Neeman, Zvika, 2011. "Transparency, Appropriability and the Early State," CEPR Discussion Papers 8548, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Famine; Disease; Epidemics; Economic history;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:201803. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Nicolas Clifton (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educdie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.