CAN OPENNESS MITIGATE THE EFFECTS OF WEATHER SHOCKS? EVIDENCE FROM INDIA'S FAMINE ERA

transformation of countries throughout history. Rural citizens in developing countries today, however, remain highly exposed to fluctua tions in the weather. This exposure affects the incomes these citizens earn and the prices of the foods they eat. Recent work has documented the significant mortality stress that rural house holds face in times of adverse weather (Robin Burgess, Olivier Deschenes, Dave Donaldson, and Michael Greenstone 2009; Masayuki Kudamatsu, Torsten Persson, and David Stromberg 2009). Famines?times of acutely low nominal agricultural income and acutely high food prices?are an extreme manifestation of this mapping from weather to death. Lilian C. A. Knowles (1924) describes these events as "agricultural lockouts" where both food sup plies and agricultural employment, on which the bulk of the rural population depends, plummet. The result is catastrophic, with widespread hun ger and loss of life. Though now confined to the world's poor est countries, food shortages and famines were features of most preindustrial societies. Over time there has been intense debate over what role openness to trade in food might play in