Replication Data for: Famine Mortality and Rational Political Inactivity (with Thomas Plümper), World Development, 37 (1), 2009, pp. 50-61

Famine mortality is preventable by government action and yet some famines kill. We develop a political theory of famine mortality based on the selectorate theory of Bueno de Mesquita et al . [Bueno de Mesquita, B. B., Morrow, J. M., Siverson, R. M., & Smith, A. (2002). Political institutions, policy choice and the survival of leaders. British Journal of Political Science, 32 (4), 559–590, Bueno de Mesquita, B. B., Smith, A., Siverson, R. M., & Morrow J. M. (2003). The logic of political survival . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press]. We argue that it can be politically rational for a government, democratic or not, to remain inactive in the face of severe famine threat. We derive the testable hypotheses that famine mortality is possible in democracies, but likely to be lower than in autocracies. Moreover, a larger share of people being affected by famine relative to population size together with large quantities of international food aid being available will lower the mortality in both regime types, but more so in democracies.尽管饥荒死亡率可通过政府行动加以预防，但仍有部分饥荒造成了人员死亡。我们基于布埃诺·德·梅斯基塔（Bueno de Mesquita）等人提出的选任集团理论（selectorate theory），构建了一套关于饥荒死亡率的政治理论。相关参考文献如下：[布埃诺·德·梅斯基塔, B. B., 莫罗, J. M., 西弗森, R. M., 与史密斯, A. (2002). 政治制度、政策选择与领导人存续. 《英国政治科学期刊》, 32(4), 559–590；布埃诺·德·梅斯基塔, B. B., 史密斯, A., 西弗森, R. M., 与莫罗, J. M. (2003). 政治生存的逻辑. 马萨诸塞州剑桥市: 麻省理工学院出版社]。我们认为，无论政体为民主或威权，政府在面临严重饥荒威胁时选择不作为，在政治层面上可能具有合理性。我们推导出可检验假说：民主政体中存在发生饥荒死亡率的可能性，但其死亡率大概率低于威权政体。此外，受饥荒影响人口占总人口的比例越高，同时可获得的国际粮食援助规模越大，则两类政体下的饥荒死亡率均会降低，且这种抑制效应在民主政体中更为显著。