Malthus Goes to China: The Effect of “Positive Checks” on Grain Market Development, 1736–1910
研究发现，18世纪中期后中国粮食市场整合程度因人口翻倍而下降80%，直到太平天国起义消灭约六分之一人口后才恢复增长，且这种负相关主要源于粮食盈余地区。
After peaking around the mid-eighteenth century, grain market integration in China declined by a colossal 80 percent amid a twofold increase in population and remained at low levels for well over a century. Markets only resumed their growth momentum after the largest peasant revolt—the Taiping Rebellion—wiped out roughly one-sixth of the Chinese population starting 1851. This U-shaped pattern of grain market integration distinguished China from Europe in their trajectories of market development. Using grain prices to divide China into grain-deficit and grainsurplus regions, we find that the negative relationship between population growth and market integration originated from the grain-surplus-cum-exporting regions.