Do Famines Happen in Democracies?

In his 1999 book “Development as Freedom,” Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen famously claimed that “famines do not occur in democracies.” This paper tests his bold declaration. Specifically, this paper... [ view full abstract ]

In his 1999 book “Development as Freedom,” Nobel Memorial Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen famously claimed that “famines do not occur in democracies.” This paper tests his bold declaration. Specifically, this paper seeks to evaluate whether or not democracies are better at preventing hunger in the face of droughts, a common threat to child health in the largely agricultural, rural communities of Africa. I evaluate the empirical evidence for Sen’s claim using a cross-sectional analysis of African children’s comparative protection from hunger under different regimes. I use two different identification strategies, including a spatial regression discontinuity design. Primarily, my models are based on the idea that we can compare outcomes for people living on either side of a modern national border, which were arguably drawn randomly – irrespective of local conditions, but within the same ethnic homelands. By comparing two different national groups within ethnic homelands, I am comparing two populations with a shared genetic, social, and economic history, which is typically a confounding factor in cross-sectional studies. This paper adds to the literature on the relevance of national institutions in comparative development and contributes to the literature on determinants of health in developing countries.