IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/econom/v82y2015i326p295-318.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Climate Shocks, State Capacity and Peasant Uprisings in North China during 25–1911 ce

Author

Listed:
  • Qiang Chen

Abstract

type="main" xml:id="ecca12114-abs-0001"> China provides an interesting case study of civil conflict because of her long history and rich records. Using a unique dynastic panel dataset for north China during 25–1911 ce, this study finds that severe famines and dynastic age were positively correlated with peasant uprisings, whereas government disaster relief as a proxy for state capacity played a significant mitigating role. Negative climate shocks (e.g. severe drought, locust plagues) affected peasant uprisings primarily through the channel of severe famines. The effects of population density, temperature and other climate shocks (e.g. flood, levee breaches, snow disasters) were either not robust or insignificant.

Suggested Citation

  • Qiang Chen, 2015. "Climate Shocks, State Capacity and Peasant Uprisings in North China during 25–1911 ce," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 82(326), pages 295-318, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:econom:v:82:y:2015:i:326:p:295-318
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ecca.2015.82.issue-326
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chu, C Y Cyrus & Lee, Ronald D, 1994. "Famine, Revolt, and the Dynastic Cycle: Population Dynamics in Historic China," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 7(4), pages 351-378, November.
    2. Alberto Abadie, 2006. "Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 50-56, May.
    3. Usher, Dan, 1989. "The Dynastic Cycle and the Stationary State," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1031-1044, December.
    4. Qiang Chen, 2015. "Climate shocks, dynastic cycles and nomadic conquests: evidence from historical China," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(2), pages 185-204.
    5. Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Defense Economics," Handbook of Defense Economics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 1.
    6. Ghobarah, Hazem Adam & Huth, Paul & Russett, Bruce, 2003. "Civil Wars Kill and Maim People—Long After the Shooting Stops," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(2), pages 189-202, May.
    7. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    8. Cameron,A. Colin & Trivedi,Pravin K., 2005. "Microeconometrics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521848053.
    9. Shiue, Carol H., 2004. "Local Granaries and Central Government Disaster Relief: Moral Hazard and Intergovernmental Finance in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century China," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 100-124, March.
    10. Chassang, Sylvain & Miquel, Gerard Padró i, 2009. "Economic Shocks and Civil War," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 4(3), pages 211-228, October.
    11. Grossman, Herschel I, 1991. "A General Equilibrium Model of Insurrections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 912-921, September.
    12. Collier, Paul & Hoeffler, Anke, 1998. "On Economic Causes of Civil War," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(4), pages 563-573, October.
    13. Carol H. Shiue & Wolfgang Keller, 2007. "Markets in China and Europe on the Eve of the Industrial Revolution," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1189-1216, September.
    14. Markus Brückner, 2010. "Population Size and Civil Conflict Risk: Is there a Causal Link?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 535-550, May.
    15. Carol H. Shiue, 2002. "Transport Costs and the Geography of Arbitrage in Eighteenth-Century China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1406-1419, December.
    16. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "The Logic of Political Violence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(3), pages 1411-1445.
    17. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    18. Sylvain Chassang & Gerard Padró I Miquel, 2010. "Conflict and Deterrence Under Strategic Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1821-1858.
    19. Jose G. Montalvo & Marta Reynal-Querol, 2007. "Fighting against Malaria: Prevent Wars while Waiting for the "Miraculous" Vaccine," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 165-177, February.
    20. Ying Bai & James Kai-sing Kung, 2011. "Climate Shocks and Sino-nomadic Conflict," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(3), pages 970-981, August.
    21. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Skaperdas, Stergios, 2007. "Economics of Conflict: An Overview," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 649-709, Elsevier.
    22. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Qiang Chen & Yijiang Wang & Chun-lei Yang, 2014. "Taxation under Autocracy: Theory and Evidence from Late Imperial China," SDU Working Papers 2014-03, School of Economics, Shandong University.
    2. Li, Zhen & Wu, Baijun & Wang, Danyang & Tang, Maogang, 2022. "Government mandatory energy-biased technological progress and enterprises' environmental performance: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of cleaner production standards in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    3. Slamet Rosyadi & Ahmad Sabiq & Abdul Aziz Ahmad & Nuryanti, 2022. "The Indonesian Government Capacity in Responding to the COVID-19 Impacts on the Creative Economy Sector," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, June.
    4. Wang, Shengquan & Chen, Langnan, 2019. "Driving factors of equity bubbles," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 304-317.
    5. Qiang Chen, 2014. "Natural Disasters, Ethnic Diversity, and the Size of Nations: Two Thousand Years of Unification and Division in Historical China," SDU Working Papers 2014-01, School of Economics, Shandong University.
    6. Guochao Wan & Ahmad Yahya Dawod, 2022. "ESG Rating and Northbound Capital Shareholding Preferences: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-19, July.
    7. Colin O'Reilly & Ryan H. Murphy, 2022. "An Index Measuring State Capacity, 1789–2018," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(355), pages 713-745, July.
    8. Haiwen Zhou, 2023. "Unification and Division: A Theory of Institutional Choices in Imperial China," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 24(1), pages 13-37, May.
    9. Shengda Zhang & David Dian Zhang & Qing Pei, 2021. "Spatiotemporal shifts of population and war under climate change in imperial China," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 165(1), pages 1-19, March.
    10. Kevin Sylwester, 2019. "Imperial Synchronicity in Eurasia: 300 BCE To 1500 CE," Eurasian Journal of Economics and Finance, Eurasian Publications, vol. 7(2), pages 59-73.

    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. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    2. Christopher Blattman, 2009. "Civil War: A Review of Fifty Years of Research," Working Papers id:2231, eSocialSciences.
    3. Coyne,Christopher J., 2020. "Defense, Peace, and War Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108724036.
    4. Arinze Nwokolo, 2018. "Oil Price Shocks and Civil Conflict: Evidence from Nigeria," HiCN Working Papers 274, Households in Conflict Network.
    5. Michael Jetter & Bei Li, 2017. "The Political Economy of Opposition Groups: Peace, Terrorism, or Civil Conflict," CESifo Working Paper Series 6747, CESifo.
    6. James Fenske & Namrata Kala, 2012. "Climate, ecosystem resilience and the slave trade," CSAE Working Paper Series 2012-23, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    7. Matteo Cervellati & Sunde, Uwe & Simona Valmori, 2011. "Disease Environment and Civil Conflicts," Economics Working Paper Series 1113, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    8. Camille Laville, 2018. "The econometrical causal analysis of internal conflicts: The evolutions of a growing literature [L’analyse économétrique des conflits internes par l’approche causale : les évolutions d’une littérat," Working Papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    9. Jetter, Michael, 2016. "Peace, Terrorism, or Civil Conflict? Understanding the Decision of an Opposition Group," IZA Discussion Papers 9996, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Schroyen, Fred & Treich, Nicolas, 2016. "The power of money: Wealth effects in contests," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 46-68.
    11. van Besouw, Bram & Ansink, Erik & van Bavel, Bas, 2016. "The economics of violence in natural states," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 139-156.
    12. Zhukov, Yuri M., 2016. "Trading hard hats for combat helmets: The economics of rebellion in eastern Ukraine," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 1-15.
    13. Camille Laville, 2018. "The econometrical causal analysis of internal conflicts: The evolutions of a growing literature [L’analyse économétrique des conflits internes par l’approche causale : les évolutions d’une littérat," CERDI Working papers hal-01940461, HAL.
    14. Albornoz, Facundo & Hauk, Esther, 2014. "Civil war and U.S. foreign influence," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 64-78.
    15. Alexandros Apostolides & Michalis Zaouras & Alexis Antoniou, 2017. "Nationalism, policing and inequality: Understanding outbursts of violence using the 1931 Cyprus riots," Working Papers 17018, Economic History Society.
    16. Gomes, Joseph Flavian, 2015. "The Political Economy of the Maoist Conflict in India: An Empirical Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 96-123.
    17. Hull, Peter & Imai, Masami, 2013. "Economic shocks and civil conflict: Evidence from foreign interest rate movements," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 77-89.
    18. Mitra, Anirban & Mitra, Shabana, 2020. "Redistribution of Economic Resources due to Conflict: The Maoist Uprising in Nepal," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(3), pages 578-604.
    19. Fenske, James & Kala, Namrata, 2015. "Climate and the slave trade," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 19-32.
    20. Kung, James Kai-sing & Ma, Chicheng, 2014. "Can cultural norms reduce conflicts? Confucianism and peasant rebellions in Qing China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 132-149.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N45 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Asia including Middle East
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

    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:bla:econom:v:82:y:2015:i:326:p:295-318. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.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.