The Columbian Exchange and Conflict in Asia

• In Event: New Work on the Historical Political Economy of Asia

Abstract

Difference in difference and event study analyses in a panel of Asian grid cells over nine centuries demonstrate that greater agricultural potential due to New World crops increased violent conflict after 1500. Rising caloric potential in a typical grid cell increased conflict by roughly its mean. The result holds across several types of conflict and New World crops. It is largely driven by South Asia, a densely populated, diverse region with several competing historical states. The evidence supports a rapacity effect -- increases in the gains from appropriation to the combatants -- as a mechanism. Population density, urbanization, and British imperialism significantly mediate the impact of the Columbian Exchange.

Author

• Mark Dincecco, University of Michigan