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Economies of Density versus Natural Advantage: Crop Choice on the Back Forty

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  • Thomas J. Holmes

    (University of Minnesota, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and NBER)

  • Sanghoon Lee

    (Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia)

Abstract

We estimate the factors determining specialization of crop choice at the level of individual fields, distinguishing between the role of natural advantage (soil characteristics) and economies of density (scale economies achieved when farmers plant neighboring fields the same). Using rich geographic data from North Dakota, including new data on crop choice collected by satellite, we estimate a model of how a farmer plants adjacent fields under the farmer's control. We find planting decisions on a field are heavily dependent on the soil characteristics of adjacent fields. Through this relationship, we back out the structural parameters of economies of density. © 2011 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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File URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/REST_a_00149
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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by MIT Press in its journal Review of Economics and Statistics.

Volume (Year): 94 (2012)
Issue (Month): 1 (February)
Pages: 1-19

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Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:94:y:2012:i:1:p:1-19

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  1. Duranton, Gilles & Overman, Henry G., 2005. "Testing for localization using micro-geographic data," Open Access publications from London School of Economics and Political Science http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/, London School of Economics and Political Science.
  2. Thomas J. Holmes, 2006. "The Diffusion of Wal-Mart and Economies of Density," 2006 Meeting Papers 15, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  3. Bajari, Patrick & Hong, Han & Krainer, John & Nekipelov, Denis, 2010. "Estimating Static Models of Strategic Interactions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 28(4), pages 469-482.
  4. Marcy Burchfield & Henry G. Overman & Diego Puga & Matthew A. Turner, 2006. "Causes of Sprawl: A Portrait from Space," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 121(2), pages 587-633, May.
  5. Ellison, Glenn & Glaeser, Edward L, 1997. "Geographic Concentration in U.S. Manufacturing Industries: A Dartboard Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(5), pages 889-927, October.
  6. Glenn Ellison & Edward L. Glaeser, 1999. "The Geographic Concentration of Industry: Does Natural Advantage Explain Agglomeration?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1862, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  7. William Kerr & Edward Glaeser & Glenn Ellison, 2007. "What Causes Industry Agglomeration? Evidence from Coagglomeration Patterns," Working Papers 07-13, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
  8. Manski, Charles F, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 531-42, July.
  9. Edward L. Glaeser & Jose A. Scheinkman, 1999. "Measuring Social Interactions," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1878, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
  10. Evans, William N & Oates, Wallace E & Schwab, Robert M, 1992. "Measuring Peer Group Effects: A Study of Teenage Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(5), pages 966-91, October.
  11. Battese, George E., 1992. "Frontier production functions and technical efficiency: a survey of empirical applications in agricultural economics," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 7(3-4), pages 185-208, October.
  12. Thomas J. Holmes, 1998. "The Effect of State Policies on the Location of Manufacturing: Evidence from State Borders," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(4), pages 667-705, August.
  13. Douglas W. Caves & Laurits R. Christensen & Michael W. Tretheway, 1984. "Economies of Density versus Economies of Scale: Why Trunk and Local Service Airline Costs Differ," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 15(4), pages 471-489, Winter.
  14. Rosenthal, Stuart S. & Strange, William C., 2004. "Evidence on the nature and sources of agglomeration economies," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 49, pages 2119-2171 Elsevier.
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Cited by:
  1. Gary D. Libecap & Dean Lueck, 2009. "The Demarcation of Land and the Role of Coordinating Institutions," NBER Working Papers 14942, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Stephen Redding, 2009. "The Empirics of New Economic Geography," CEP Discussion Papers dp0925, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  3. Redding, Stephen J., 2009. "Economic Geography: a Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature," CEPR Discussion Papers 7126, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  4. Edward L. Glaeser & William R. Kerr & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2009. "Clusters of entrepreneurship," Economics Working Papers 1359, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
  5. Hoyt Bleakley & Jeffrey Lin, 2011. "Portage and path dependence," Working Papers 11-38, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
  6. Benjamin Bridgman & Michael Maio & James A. Schmitz, Jr., 2012. "What ever happened to the Puerto Rican sugar manufacturing industry?," Staff Report 477, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  7. William R. Kerr & Scott Duke Kominers, 2012. "Agglomerative Forces and Cluster Shapes," Working Papers 12-09, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
  8. Edward L. Glaeser & Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr, 2013. "Entrepreneurship And Urban Growth:An Empirical Assessment With Historical Mines," Working Papers 13-15, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
  9. Thomas J. Holmes & Sanghoon Lee, 2010. "Cities as Six-by-Six-Mile Squares: Zipf’s Law?," NBER Chapters, in: Agglomeration Economics, pages 105-131 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Raghuram Rajan & Rodney Ramcharan, 2012. "The Anatomy of a Credit Crisis: The Boom and Bust in Farm Land Prices in the United States in the 1920s," NBER Working Papers 18027, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Gary D. Libecap & Dean Lueck, 2009. "The Demarcation of Land and the Role of Coordinating Institutions," ICER Working Papers 14-2009, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.

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