This paper presents new archival evidence about amount and structure of central government disaster relief during China's devastating flood of 1823. While the flood affected 20 percent of China's counties, spending per capita was sizable and distributed between provinces depending on the...

Economic historians have offered several explanations for China’s cycles of silverisation and de-silverisation in the 18th and 19th centuries focusing either on exogenous supply shortages in world silver markets or an outflow of silver as a consequence of opium imports. This paper challenges...