Abstract
The frequency of bad harvests and price elasticity of demand are measured using new data on English grain yields 1268–1480 and 1750–1850 and a revised price series. The analysis shows that major harvest shortfalls were a significant component of most historical subsistence crises, as back-to-back shortfalls were of the worst famines. Although serious harvest shortfalls long remained an unavoidable fact of economic life, by c.1800 yields had become less variable and prices less harvest sensitive. By the eve of the Industrial Revolution, England had become effectively famine-free.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 859-886 |
Number of pages | 28 |
Journal | The Journal of Economic History |
Volume | 71 |
Issue number | 4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2011 |
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Dive into the research topics of 'Harvest Shortfalls, Grain prices, and Famines in Preindustrial England'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Datasets
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Three centuries of English crop yields, 1211 1491
Campbell, B. (Creator), Livingstone, M. (Data Collector), Drewery, A. (Data Collector), Whittick, C. (Data Collector) & Yeates, E. (Data Manager), Queen's University Belfast, 2007
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