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The Persistence of Harvest Shocks in Medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2019

Cliff T. Bekar Open the ORCID record for Cliff T. Bekar [Opens in a new window]
Cliff T. Bekar*
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, MSC 40, Lewis & Clark College, 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road, Portland, OR 97219. E-mail address: bekar@lclark.edu.
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Abstract

I present evidence that shocks to the Medieval English harvest persisted. Hypothesized mechanisms include varying supplies of seed corn and other complementary harvest inputs. Peasants are modeled as trading off current consumption against grain stores and sow rates so that subsistence-level shocks may persist. For my sample I find that a failed harvest increased the probability of subsequent harvest failure by 20–30 percent. Grain yields are analyzed as a strongly balanced panel by year, manor, and crop. While I reject the hypothesis that harvests were self-contained annual events, I caution against linking harvest persistence directly to runs in grain prices.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 79 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 954 - 988
Copyright
© The Economic History Association 2019 

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Footnotes

I thank Dan Bogart, editor at the Journal of Economic History, and two anonymous referees for their excellent comments and critiques of the manuscript. The paper has benefited from comments and suggestions at the Cliometrics session of the Western Economics Association meetings in Portland Oregon and the Agricliometrics conference in Cambridge, England. I especially appreciate the comments of Michael Moody and Clyde Reed on earlier drafts of the paper. Katie Keith, Hayley Abourezk-Pinkstone, and Anna Schall all provided excellent research assistance. All errors are my own.

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