Famine and Finance: Credit and the Great Famine of Ireland PDF
Preview Famine and Finance: Credit and the Great Famine of Ireland
FAMINE AND FINANCE Credit and the Great Famine of Ireland Tyler Beck Goodspeed Famine and Finance Tyler Beck Goodspeed Famine and Finance Credit and the Great Famine of Ireland Tyler Beck Goodspeed St John’s College University of Oxford Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom ISBN 978-3-319-31764-9 ISBN 978-3-319-31765-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-31765-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955936 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover image © Ian Shipley IRE / Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For the millions who went hungry Acknowledgments The various debts owed for this work far exceed my ability to repay in thanks here. I must first and foremost thank my advisers, Emma Rothschild, Benjamin Friedman, Niall Ferguson, and especially Richard Hornbeck, for their invaluable guidance, patience, and counsel through- out this project. I also thank Cormac Ó Gráda, Joel Mokyr, Nathan Nunn, Peter Solar, Liam Kennedy, John Turner, Kevin O’Rourke, James Fenske, and Sean Barrett for their generous comments and suggestions. Seminar participants at the London School of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, University of Oxford, Queens University Belfast, University of Southern Denmark, and the Royal Economic Society offered valuable questions and ideas. I thank Aidan Hollis and Arthur Sweetman for generously sharing their data on the Irish Loan Funds and Jenna Pace and Seth Rose for mapping support. Financially, this project would not have been possible without the fund- ing support from the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science, the Institute for Humane Studies, and a Harvard University Clive Fellowship grant. I further salute the team at Palgrave-Macmillan, especially Rachel Sangster and Gemma Leigh, whose professionalism, thoroughness, effi- ciency, and patience made them truly an honor and privilege to work with. Finally, and not least, I must thank those closest to me who have had to endure endless recapitulations of the various twists and turns of this project, including the most mundane of academic discoveries. Mom, Dad, Elizabeth, and Oliver, thank you for your love and support throughout. Thank you. vii Contents 1 Revisiting the Great Famine 1 2 Mapping the Famine 27 3 Credit and Adaptation 57 4 Surviving the Famine 99 5 Was Malthus Right? 133 6 The Great Famine in the Short and Long Run 177 References 187 Index 197 ix List of Figures Fig. 1.1 Geographic distribution of blight severity 19 Fig. 1.2 1845–46 Blight severity vs. 1879 potato yields 25 Fig. 2.1 Estimated changes by blight severity 38 Fig. 3.1 Estimated changes by blight severity and Loan Fund presence 66 xi List of Tables Table 1.1 Summary statistics 21 Table 1.2 Summary fund statistics 22 Table 1.3 Estimated blight severity, Loan Fund presence, Loan Fund lending, and musical society presence by pre-famine characteristics 24 Table 2.1 Estimated changes in poultry holdings by blight severity 41 Table 2.2 Estimated changes in pig holdings by blight severity 42 Table 2.3 Estimated changes in cattle holdings by blight severity 44 Table 2.4. Estimated changes in sheep holdings by blight severity 45 Table 2.5 Estimated changes in the value of livestock holdings by blight severity 46 Table 2.6 Estimated changes in population, potato crop share, and farm size by blight severity 48 Table 3.1 Estimated changes in poultry holdings by Loan Fund presence 68 Table 3.2 Estimated changes in swine holdings by Loan Fund presence 69 Table 3.3 Estimated changes in cattle holdings by Loan Fund presence 73 Table 3.4 Estimated changes in population, potato crop share, and farm size by Loan Fund activity 74 Table 3.5 Estimated changes in population, potato crop share, farm size, and cattle holdings by a number of banks 77 Table 3.6 2SLS-estimated changes in population, potato crop share, and farm size by blight severity interacted with Loan Fund presence or average annual lending 81 xiii xiv List of Tables Table 3.7 Estimated changes in population, potato crop share, and farm size by blight severity, with instrumented Loan Fund presence and lending 85 Table 3.8 2SLS-estimated changes in value of livestock holdings by blight severity interacted with Loan Fund presence 87 Table 3.9 Estimated changes in value of livestock holdings by blight severity, with instrumented Loan Fund presence 89 Table 3.10 First-stage estimated coefficients on AIMS musical society presence and AIMS interacted with blight severity 91 Table 3.11 Estimated pre-famine changes in population and potato crop share by blight severity and Loan Fund presence 93 Table 4.1 Estimated Loan Fund survival probability and changes in financial metrics, high versus low blight 113 Table 4.2 Estimated Loan Fund survival probability by pre-famine metrics interacted with high blight 116 Table 4.3 Estimated changes in Loan Fund activity by pre-famine metrics interacted with high blight 120 Table 4.4 Robustness checks 126 Table 5.1 Estimated changes in population by blight severity interacted with pre-famine characteristics 141 Table 5.2 Estimated changes in crop acreage by blight severity interacted with pre-famine characteristics 143 Table 5.3 Estimated changes in buffer livestock assets by blight severity interacted with pre-famine characteristics (farms <15 acres) 146 Table 5.4 Estimated changes in grazing livestock assets by blight severity interacted with pre-famine characteristics (farms <15 acres) 148 Table 5.5 Estimated changes in buffer livestock assets by blight severity interacted with pre-famine characteristics (farms >15 acres) 150 Table 5.6 Estimated changes in grazing livestock assets by blight severity interacted with pre-famine characteristics (farms >15 acres) 152
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