CAN OPENNESS MITIGATE THE EFFECTS OF WEATHER SHOCKS? EVIDENCE FROM INDIA'S FAMINE ERA

By Robin Burgess, David J. Donaldson. 2010

203 citations recorded by the source corpus.

transformation of countries throughout history. Rural citizens in developing countries today, however, remain highly exposed to fluctua tions in the weather. This exposure affects the incomes these citizens earn and the prices of the foods they eat. Recent work has documented the significant mortality stress that rural house holds face in times of adverse weather (Robin Burgess, Olivier Deschenes, Dave Donaldson, and Michael Greenstone 2009; Masayuki Kudamatsu, Torsten Persson, and David Stromberg 2009). Famines?times of acutely low nominal agricultural income and acutely high food prices?are an extreme manifestation of this mapping from weather to death. Lilian C. A. Knowles (1924) describes these events as "agricultural lockouts" where both food sup plies and agricultural employment, on which the bulk of the rural population depends, plummet. The result is catastrophic, with widespread hun ger and loss of life. Though now confined to the world's poor est countries, food shortages and famines were features of most preindustrial societies. Over time there has been intense debate over what role openness to trade in food might play in

Subfields: General Health Professions, Sociology and Political Science, Soil Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6f6e1db0008add0ba8934dbf95f0d125fcd23b42

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In General Health Professions

In Sociology and Political Science

In Soil Science

Citations in the corpus

The role of international trade in managing food security risks from climate change (2015, background): “Failure of the annual monsoons to come soon enough, or excessive rainfall in 19th century India was a great source of food insecurity (Burgess and Donaldson 2010). One of the biggest problems in confronting such production shortfalls was the difficulty of transporting large amounts of grain from una”
The Institutional Causes of China's Great Famine, 1959–1961 (2015, unknown): “For recent studies on the causes of famines in market economies, see studies such as Burgess and Donaldson (2010), (Shiue, 2002, 2004, 2005) and OGrada (2007).”
Ending Extreme Poverty and Sharing Prosperity: Progress and Policies (2015, background): “Investment in integration and connectedness through railroads in India helped reduce the exposure of agricultural prices and real income to rainfall shocks, and helped diminish the famine and mortality risks associated with recurrent weather shocks (Burgess and Donaldson 2010).”