Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Famine, revolt, and the dynastic cycle

Population dynamics in historic China

  • Published:
Journal of Population Economics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Historians have long noticed that population declines in ancient China often coincided with dynasty changes, and that most of these declines were the result of internecine wars which, in turn, were often initiated by famine or density pressure. Since the interactions between density pressure, internecine wars, and dynasty changes cannot be explained by the traditional age-specific density-dependent population structure, we propose to use a bandit/peasant/ruler occupation-specific population model to interpret the dynamic socio-economic transitions of ancient Chinese population, and provide econometric support to our model. We also highlight the rich dynamics of the composition of human population, a factor which was often neglected in previous research on general populations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Asmussen S, Hering H (1983) Branching processes. Birkhäuser, Boston

    Google Scholar 

  • Barclay GW Coale AJ, Stoto M, Trussell TJ (1976) A reassessment of the demography of traditional rural China. Popul Index 42:606–635

    Google Scholar 

  • Caswell H (1990) Matrix population models: construction, analysis, and interpretation. Sinauer, Sunderland

    Google Scholar 

  • Chang S-L (1983) History of Chinese peasant revolution. People's Publisher, Peking (in Chinese)

    Google Scholar 

  • Chao K (1986) Man and land in Chinese history: an economic analysis. Stanford University Press, Stanford

    Google Scholar 

  • Chao W-L, Hsieh S-C (1988) History of Chinese population. People's Publisher, Peking (in Chinese)

    Google Scholar 

  • Chu CYC (1991) Primogeniture. J Polit Econ 99:78–99

    Google Scholar 

  • Chu CYC, Koo H-W (1990) Intergenerational income-group mobility and differential fertility. Am Econ Rev 80:1125–1138

    Google Scholar 

  • Chu KC (1973) A preliminary study of the climate fluctuations during the last 5000 years in China. Sci Sin 16:226–256

    Google Scholar 

  • von Clausewitz C (1976) On war. (Edited and translated by Howard M, Paret P) Princeton University Press, Princeton

  • Day RH (1982) Instability in the transition from manorianism: a classical analysis. Explorat Econ History 19:321–338

    Google Scholar 

  • Day RH (1983) The emergence of chaos from classical economic growth. Q J Econ 97:201–213

    Google Scholar 

  • Day RH, Walter J-L (1989) Economic growth in the very long run: on the multiple phase interaction of population, technology, and social infrastructure. In: Barnett WA, Geweke J, Shell K (eds) Economic complexity: chaos, sunspots, bubbles, and nonlinearity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 253–289

    Google Scholar 

  • Durand JD (1960) The population statistics of China, A.D. 2–1953. Popul Studies 13:209–257

    Google Scholar 

  • Fei JCH, Liu TJ (1986) Population dynamics of agrarianism in traditional China. Confercen proceedings on modern Chinese history. Academia Sinica, Taipei

    Google Scholar 

  • Frauenthal J, Swick K (1983) Limit cycle oscillations of the human population. Demography 20:285–298

    Google Scholar 

  • Galloway P (1986) Long term fluctuations in climate and population in the preindustrial era. Popul Dev Rev 12:1–24

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstone JA (1994) The english revolution: a structural-demographic approach. In: Goldstone JA (ed) Revolutions: theoretical, comparative, and historical studies, second edition. Harcourt Brace, Jovanovich, Orlando, pp 100–114

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartwell R (1982) The demographic, political, and social transformation of China, 750–1550. Harvard J Asiatic Studies 42:365–442

    Google Scholar 

  • Ho PT (1959) Studies on the population of China: 1368–1953. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones R (1976) The origin and development of a medium of exchange. J Polit Econ 84:757–776

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelsey D (1988) The economics of chaos or the chaos of economics. Oxford Econ Papers 40:1–31

    Google Scholar 

  • Klein LIZ (1958) The estimation of distributed lags. Econometrica 26:553–565

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuan TK (1981) Demographic changes between the warring states period and the Early Han. Bull Inst History Philos 54:64–108

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee RD (1974) The formal dynamics of controlled populations and the echo, the boom and the bust. Demography 11:563–585

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee RD (1987 a) Population dynamics of humans and other animals. Demography 24:443–465

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee RD (1987 b) Population cycles. In: Eatwell J, Milgate M, Newman P (eds) The new palgrave dictionary of economic theory and doctrine. Macmillan, London, pp 914–917

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee RD, Galloway PR (1985) Some possibilities for the analysis of aggregate historical demographic data from China. Presented at the workshop on Qing Population History, held at California Institute of Technology

  • MacEvedy C, Jones R (1978) Atlas of world population history. Penguin, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddala GS (1977) Econometrics. McGraw-Hill, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Odum EP (1971) Fundamentals of ecology, 3rd edn. Saunders, Philadelphia

    Google Scholar 

  • Ranis G, Fei JCH (1961) A theory of economic development. Am Econ Rev 51:533–558

    Google Scholar 

  • Reischauer E (1965) The dynastic cycle. In: Meskill J (ed) The pattern of Chinese history. DC Heath, Lexington, pp 31–33

    Google Scholar 

  • Samuelson PA (1958) An exact consumption loan model of interest with or without the social contrivance of money. J Polit Econ 66:467–481

    Google Scholar 

  • Samuelson PA (1976) An economist's nonlinear model of self-generated fertility waves. Popul Studies 30:243–247

    Google Scholar 

  • Schelling T (1978) Micromotive and macrobehavior. Norton, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Tuljapurkar S (1987) Cycles in nonlinear age-structured models I: renewal equations. Theoret Popul Biol 32:26–41

    Google Scholar 

  • Usher D (1989) The dynastic cycle and the stationary state. Am Econ Rev 79:1031–1044

    Google Scholar 

  • Wachter KW (1991) Pre-procreative ages in population stability and cyclicity. Math Popul Studies 3:79–103

    Google Scholar 

  • Wachter KW, Lee RD (1989) US births and limit cycle models. Demography 26:99–115

    Google Scholar 

  • Wang YC (1938) The rise of land tax and the fall of dynasties in Chinese history. Pacific Affairs 201–220

  • Whitmore TM, Turner BL, Johnson DL, Kates RW, Gottschang (n. d.) Population and environmental transformation: a long term view. Manuscript of the Graduate School of Geography, Clark University, MA: Worcester

  • Wright AF (1965) Comments on early Chinese views. In: Meskill J (ed) The pattern of Chinese history. DC Heath, Lexington, MA

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, National Taiwan University, and Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica, 115, Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan

    C. Y. Cyrus Chu

  2. Department of Demography and Economics, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA

    Ronald D. Lee

Authors
  1. C. Y. Cyrus Chu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ronald D. Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

This research was partly funded by the Rockefeller Foundation population science grant to C. Y. Cyrus Chu. Comments and suggestions by an anonymous referee and seminar participants at Berkeley, Michigan, Stanford and National Taiwan University were helpful in the revision of earlier drafts. Generous programming help from Clint Cummins of TSP and Ruth Yu is gratefully acknowledged.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Chu, C.Y.C., Lee, R.D. Famine, revolt, and the dynastic cycle. J Popul Econ 7, 351–378 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00161472

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00161472

Keywords

Search

Navigation