Title of the project: Climate, Harvests, and Price Expectations – A Comparative Analysis across Europe and China from the 16th to the 20th Century (CLIMAGR)
Description of the project:
This project aims to conduct a comparative analysis of the relationship between climate and agricultural productivity in specific regions of Europe and China from the 16th to the early 20th century. Using Vector Autoregression (VAR) models to analyze over 13,000 data points, the study examines how agricultural outputs and climatic conditions interact within these regions. By including staple price variables in our models, we broaden the analysis to encompass human behavioral impacts on the agriculture-climate nexus, investigating how market forces may alter this dynamic. The findings of this research not only highlight the significant effects of climate and human behavior on agriculture but could also shed light on the divergent economic growth patterns of Europe and China prior to the Great Divergence.
Biography:
Luigi Oddo is an economist with a Ph.D. in Economics and Political Economy, specializing in the structural determinants of long-term economic development and monetary economics. His research primarily focuses on economic trends from the Classical Age to the early Industrial Revolution, utilizing quantitative approaches such as VAR macro-econometrics and Wavelet non-linear analysis.
Previously a postdoctoral researcher at both the University of Turin and the University of Genoa, he has served as an adjunct professor in Microeconomics at the University of Genoa. He has taught courses on Globalization, Productivity, and Competitiveness in a master’s program at the University of Turin. Luigi Oddo has presented his research at international conferences and published articles and papers on historical economic trends and contemporary monetary policies, including a paper published in the “European Review of Economic History”.
Nationality: Italian
VUB department and supervisor:
Department of History
Prof. Paul Erdkamp
Starting date: 01 May 2024