Food availability decline and Sen's entitlement are two leading approaches in understanding causes of famine. Previous research based on case studies has given independent support to each approach. This paper analyses the Chinese famine of 1959-61 by considering jointly the urban bias and the...

This paper investigates household consumption changes at retirement by utilizing a comprehensive, diary-based household survey from China. The survey contains both consumption quantity and price information, which permits separating quantity changes from price changes. The mandatory retirement...

The Great Leap Forward disaster, characterized by a collapse in grain production and a widespread famine in China between 1959 and 1961, is found attributable to a systemic failure in central planning. Wishfully expecting a great leap in agricultural productivity from collectivization, the...

This paper studies the contribution of schooling to rural income in China during factor market liberalization between 1986 and 1995. The relaxation of controls permitted farm households to reallocate productive inputs from agriculture to nonagricultural activities. It is hypothesized that...

The Great Leap Forward (GLF) disaster, characterized by a collapse of grain output, and the associated famine in China between 1959 and 1961, can be attributed to a systemic failure in central planning. Encouraged by unrealistic expectations for agricultural productivity gains from...

The Great Leap Forward (GLF) disaster, characterized by a collapse of grain output, and the associated famine in China between 1959 and 1961, can be attributed to a systemic failure in central planning. Encouraged by unrealistic expectations for agricultural productivity gains from...

Farm households in modern environments engage in multiple productive activities. In this paper we formulate and estimate a profit maximization model in which human capital enhances earnings through both activity-specific effects and across-activity factor allocation. Our purpose is to decompose...

Gradual change has been a hallmark of the Chinese reform experience, and China's success in its sequential approach makes it unique among the former command economies. Since 1979, with the inception of the continuing era of reform, the Chinese economy has flourished. Growth has averaged nine...