How markets perform during famines has long been a contentious issue. Recent research tends to associate famine with market segmentation and hoarding. The evidence of this paper, based on an analysis of the spatial and temporal patterns of price movements during four famines in preindustrial...

The Great Chinese Famine of 1959-1961 is puzzling, since despite the high death rates, there is no discernable diminution in height amongst the majority of cohorts who were exposed to the famine in crucial growth years. An explanation is that shorter children experienced greater mortality and...

This paper examines the long run education and labor market effects from early-life exposure to the Greek 1941-42 famine. Given the short duration of the famine, we can separately identify the famine effects for cohorts exposed in utero, during infancy and at one year of age. We find that...