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Economic Growth: Lessons from Two Centuries of American Agriculture

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Author Info
Yair Mundlak

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Abstract

This paper reviews the growth experience of U.S. agriculture over the past two centuries in consonance with the view that growth is determined by the economic environment, which consists of the available technology, incentives, constraints, and institutions. Within this framework, the implemented technology is determined jointly with the resource allocation. The review covers the role played by resource endowment, resource flow, technical change and its factor bias, and product demand. It highlights the importance of the income elasticity of demand and the labor augmentation of the technical change. The total factor productivity (TFP) was almost nil at the beginning of the nineteenth century, increasing gradually to the point where it exhausted output growth in the latter part of the twentieth century. This pattern is consistent with the postulate emerging from this framework, where the TFP is endogenous and determined jointly with growth rather than determining it. The more recent performance of U.S. agriculture is placed within a global perspective in order to generalize the discussion.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal Journal of Economic Literature.

Volume (Year): 43 (2005)
Issue (Month): 4 (December)
Pages: 989-1024
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Handle: RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:43:y:2005:i:4:p:989-1024

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Mundlak, Yair & Larson, Donald F. & Crego, Al, 1997. "Agricultural development : issues, evidence, and consequences," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1811, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  2. Olmstead, Alan L & Rhode, Paul, 1993. "Induced Innovation in American Agriculture: A Reconsideration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(1), pages 100-118, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Evenson, Robert E., 2001. "Economic impacts of agricultural research and extension," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 11, pages 573-628 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Johnson, D Gale, 1997. "Agriculture and the Wealth of Nations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 1-12, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Robert E. Gallman, 1986. "The United States Capital Stock in the Nineteenth Century," NBER Chapters, in: Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, pages 165-214 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  6. Larson, Donald & Mundlak, Yair, 1997. "On the Intersectoral Migration of Agricultural Labor," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 45(2), pages 295-319, January.
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  1. Mugera, Amin W. & Langemeier, Michael, 2008. "Labor Productivity Growth And Convergence In The Kansas Farm Sector: A Tripartite Decomposition Using The Dea Approach," 2008 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2008, Orlando, Florida 6069, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association). [Downloadable!]
  2. Davin Chor, 2006. "Unpacking Sources of Comparative Advantage: A Quantitative Approach," Working Papers 13-2008, Singapore Management University, School of Economics, revised Oct 2008. [Downloadable!]
  3. Akos Valentinyi & Berthold Herrendorf, 2008. "Measuring Factor Income Shares at the Sector Level," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 820-835, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Moreno, Georgina & Sunding, David L. & Schoengold, Karina, 2004. "Panel Estimation Of Water Demand Based On An Episode Of Rate Reform," 2004 Annual meeting, August 1-4, Denver, CO 20342, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association). [Downloadable!]
  5. Benjamin N. Dennis & Talan Iscan, 2007. "Accounting for Structural Change: Evidence from Two Centuries of U.S. Data," Department of Economics at Dalhousie University working papers archive account7, Dalhousie, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  6. Akos Valentinyi & Berthold Herrendorf, 2008. "Measuring Factor Income Shares at the Sectoral Level," IEHAS Discussion Papers 0803, Institute of Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. [Downloadable!]
  7. Alex Mourmouras & Peter Rangazas, 2009. "Reconciling Kuznets and Habbakuk in a unified growth theory," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 149-181, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Peter Rangazas & Alex Mourmouras, 2007. "Wage Gaps and Development: Lessons from U.S. History," IMF Working Papers 07/105, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
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