By applying a difference-in-differences (DID) analysis to the adoption of maize in China from around the mid-18th century onwards, we find that, like the potato in the Old World, maize accounted for 18% of the population increase in China during 1776-1910. Unlike the potato, however, this crop...

The paper assesses the impact of rural tax reform on agricultural productivity, rural incomes and local public finance in China using data covering 1997 Chinese counties and the period from 1999 to 2009 spanning the abolition of agricultural taxation in 2003. Using comparable later-reformed...