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A model of China's agricultural crisis and famine in 1959–1961.

The Chinese collectivization movement culminated in a famine from 1959–1961 that resulted in up to 30 million deaths. Lin argues that the famine was due to making collective membership mandatory. This turned a repeated Prisoners' Dilemma into a one-shot game with shirk as the dominant action. This p...

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Published in:Oxford Economic Papers Vol. 78; no. 3; pp. 799 - 824
Main Author: McGinty, Matthew
Format: Article
Published: Oxford University Press / USA Jul2026
Subjects:
China
Famines
Game theory
Cooperative agriculture
Coordination games (Mathematics)
Incentive (Psychology)
Agrarian distress
Returns to scale
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost