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Famine and market in Ancien Régime France

2002-09, Chevet, Jean-Michel, Ó Gráda, Cormac

How—and how well—do food markets function in famine conditions? The controversy surrounding this question may benefit from historical perspective. Here we study two massive famines that struck France between 1693 and 1710, killing over two million people. In both cases the impact of harvest failure was exacerbated by wartime demands on the food supply; we ask whether the crises were exacerbated yet further by a failure of markets to function as they did in normal times. The evidence, we conclude, is most consistent with the view that markets in fact helped alleviate these crises, albeit modestly.

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Grain prices and mortality : a note on La Michodières law

2004-01, Ó Gráda, Cormac, Chevet, Jean-Michel

Research linking food prices and excess mortality has a long history in applied economics and economic history. It goes back to 1766, when Jean-Baptiste de la Michodière was the first to use empirical data to argue for a positive association between wheat prices and mortality. Here La Michodière's time series are subjected to closer statistical scrutiny: the correlation survives, though it is less strong than some later scholars asserted. We also test for the price-mortality link using cross-section data for the 1690s and 1700s.

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What were demographic crises like in mid-nineteenth century France?

2003-09, Chevet, Jean-Michel, Ó Gráda, Cormac

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Crisis : what crisis? Prices and mortality in mid-Ninteenth century France

2005-02, Chevet, Jean-Michel, Ó Gráda, Cormac

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Market segmentation and famine in Ancien Régime France

2000-02, Ó Gráda, Cormac, Chevet, Jean-Michel