1876—1879光绪大旱灾人口损失的再估计:基于历史自然实验的考察  

Re-estimation of the Population Loss during Northern Chinese Famine of 1876-1879: An Investigation Based on Historical Natural Experiment

作　　者：李楠 张铎 Li Nan;Zhang Duo

机构地区：[1]复旦大学经济学院,上海200433 [2]上海财经大学经济学院,上海200433

出　　处：《中国经济史研究》2019年第5期101-113,共13页Researches in Chinese Economic History

基　　金：国家社会科学基金重大招标项目“清代商税研究及其数据库建设”(项目编号:15ZDB037);国家自然科学基金面上项目“贸易、疾病与经济发展:基于近代中国流行性鼠疫空间扩散的理论及实证研究”(项目编号:71773070)

摘　　要：光绪大旱灾作为近代历史上最严重的自然灾害之一,对人口、社会及经济造成了巨大的冲击。受研究材料和估计方法的限制,现有关于光绪大旱灾人口损失的估计存在着诸多问题。本文利用府级数据,通过构建双重差分模型对此次旱灾造成的人口损失进行估计,考察了光绪大旱灾对人口损失的因果影响。研究发现:光绪大旱灾导致重灾区相比非重灾区人口年均增长率低11‰左右、人口密度低31%左右;而旱灾指数每上升1级,会导致县级户口损失约7700余户,人口损失约3.1万;总人口损失约1900万。本文丰富了现有关于光绪大旱灾的文献,对灾害导致的人口损失进行了重新估计,校正了以往的估计结果,同时也为近代是否存在“马尔萨斯陷阱”提供了新的实证证据。The Northern Chinese famine (1876-1879) which is one of the most severe natural disaster in modern Chinese history, caused huge impact on population, society and economy. Due to the limitation of research materials and estimation methods, existing estimations vary differently. By constructing a panel dataset of population in Qing Empire, we implement difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the casual relationship between drought and population loss. Our study shows that this Northern Chinese famine ( 1876- 1879) remarkably causes local population loss: the average annual growth rate of the experiment group (seriously affected areas) is 11‰ lower than the control group(less affected areas), and the population density decreases 31%. This result remains robust even controlling for a wide gamut of variables such as initial economic development level, geographical factors, wars, immigrants and historical drought and flood degrees. According to our former investigation, we estimate the drought causes 19.38 million deaths in North China. The contribution of this paper is as follows: Firstly, using prefecture-level dataset, we use the difference-in-differences model to examine the causal relationship between the Great Drought happened in Guangxu period (Qing dynasty) and the population loss. Our finding not only corrected the estimation results from historians, but also provides new empirical evidence and help us to understand Malthusian trap in modern China.

关 键 词：光绪旱灾 人口损失 双重差分 

分 类 号：K252[历史地理—历史学] C924.2[历史地理—中国史]