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18 - The Political Economy of China’s Great Leap Famine

from Part II - 1950 to the Present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2022

By
James Kai-sing Kung
Edited by
Debin Ma  and
Richard von Glahn
Debin Ma
Affiliation:
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo
Richard von Glahn
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
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Summary

Indisputably, the Great Leap Famine of 1958–61 stands out in Chinese history as the most profound demographic catastrophe after six centuries of nearly uninterrupted population growth. As some 30 million, or 5 percent of a population of 660 million, were wiped out within a short period of three years, it was by far the deadliest famine in human history. However, until the demographic consequences of this catastrophe were fully revealed in the 1980s, the outside world assumed that China had solved its food problem following the founding of the People’s Republic, when in fact the greatest famine in human history was just beginning to unfold.

Keywords

Great Leap Faminepeople’s communedevelopment strategyexcessive grain procurementpromotion incentivescommunal diningweather catastrophehealth and socioeconomic consequences
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Economic History of China , pp. 642 - 684
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

Ashton, B., Hill, K., Piazza, A., and Zeitz, R., “Famine in China, 1958–61,” Population and Development Review 10 (1984), 613–45.Google Scholar
Bai, Y., and Kung, J.K.S., “The Shaping of an Institutional Choice: Weather Shocks, the Great Leap Famine, and Agricultural Decollectivization in China,” Explorations in Economic History 54 (2014), 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bernstein, T.P., “Mao Zedong and the Famine of 1959–1960: A Study in Wilfulness,” China Quarterly 186 (2006), 421–45.Google Scholar
Bramall, C., “Agency and Famine in China’s Sichuan Province, 1958–1962,” China Quarterly 208 (2011), 990–1008.Google Scholar
Cao, Shuji 曹树基, 1959–1961 年中國的人口死亡及其成因 (The Death Rate of China’s Population and Its Contributing Factors from 1959–1961), 中国人口学 (Chinese Population Science), 2005, 14–28.Google Scholar
Garnaut, A., “The Geography of the Great Leap Famine,” Modern China 40.3 (2014), 315–48.Google Scholar
Kasahara, H., and B. Li, , “Grain Exports and the Causes of China’s Great Famine, 1959–1961: County-Level Evidence,” Journal of Development Economics 146 (2020), 102513.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kung, J.K.S., and Chen, S., “The Tragedy of the Nomenklatura: Career Incentives and Political Radicalism during China’s Great Leap Famine,” American Political Science Review 105.1 (2011), 27–45.Google Scholar
Kung, , J.K.S., and J.Y. Lin, , “The Causes of China’s Great Leap Famine, 1959–1961,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 52.1 (2003), 51–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kung, J.K.S., and Zhou, T., “Political Elites and Hometown Favoritism in Famine-Stricken China,” Journal of Comparative Economics (2020), at www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0147596720300184?via%3Dihub.Google Scholar
Li, W., and Yang, D.T., “The Great Leap Forward: Anatomy of a Central Planning Disaster,” Journal of Political Economy 113.4 (2005), 840–77.Google Scholar
Lin, J.Y., and Yang, D.T., “Food Availability, Entitlements and the Chinese Famine of 1959–61,” Economic Journal 110.460 (2000), 136–58.Google Scholar
Meng, X., Qian, N., and Yared, P., “The Institutional Causes of China’s Great Famine, 1959–1961,” Review of Economic Studies 82.4 (2015), 1568–1611.Google Scholar
Gráda, Ó, C., “Great Leap, Great Famine: A Review Essay,” Population and Development Review 39.2 (2013), 333–46.Google Scholar
Walker, K.R., “Food and Mortality in China during the Great Leap Forward, 1958–61,” in Ash, R.F. (ed.), Agricultural Development in China, 1949–1989: The Collected Papers of Kenneth R. Walker (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 106–47.Google Scholar

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