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...
| Publicado en: | Oxford Economic Papers Vol. 78; no. 3; pp. 799 - 824 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Jul2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=196419362&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 196419362 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00307653 OXE jtl: Oxford Economic Papers issn: 00307653 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jul2026 vid: 78 iid: 3 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 196419362 10.1093/oep/gpag020 ppf: 799 ppct: 25 formats: tig: atl: A model of China's agricultural crisis and famine in 1959–1961. aug: au: McGinty, Matthew affil: Department of Economics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, United States su: China Famines Game theory Cooperative agriculture Coordination games (Mathematics) Incentive (Psychology) Agrarian distress Returns to scale sug: subj: Famines Game theory China Cooperative agriculture Coordination games (Mathematics) Incentive (Psychology) Agrarian distress Returns to scale keyword: C72 central planning collectivization copyrightHolder:Oxford University Press copyrightYear:2026 D02 D70 famine inLanguage:en institutions non-cooperative games P32 publisher:Oxford University Press Q11 sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpag020 C72 central planning collectivization copyrightHolder:Oxford University Press copyrightYear:2026 D02 D70 famine inLanguage:en institutions non-cooperative games P32 publisher:Oxford University Press Q11 sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpag020 ab: 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 paper shows that shirking need not be the dominant strategy. In a model with increasing returns or sufficiently small collectives, the prisoners' dilemma is replaced with a coordination game. In this case voluntary collectives may either collapse or flourish, consistent with the historical evidence. This result follows from a theoretical model of effort incentives on collectives when output is equally shared. The model isolates the essential role played by returns to scale and by collective size. While shirking can emerge, it is far from guaranteed. Imposing mandatory participation can lead to a collapse of effort in a previously thriving voluntary collective. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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