IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8863.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Red Queen and the Hard Reds: Productivity Growth in American Wheat, 1800-1940

Author

Listed:
  • Alan L. Olmstead
  • Paul W. Rhode

Abstract

The standard treatment of U.S. agriculture asserts that, before the 1930s, productivity growth was almost exclusively the result of mechanization rather than biological innovations. This paper shows that, to the contrary, U.S. wheat production witnessed a biological revolution during the 19th and early 20th centuries with wholesale changes in the varieties grown and cultural practices employed. Without these changes, vast expanses of the wheat belt could not have sustained commercial production and yields everywhere would have plummeted due to the increasing severity of insects, diseases, and weeds. Our revised estimates of Parker and Klein's productivity calculations indicate that biological innovations account for roughly one-half of labor productivity growth between 1839 and 1909.

Suggested Citation

  • Alan L. Olmstead & Paul W. Rhode, 2002. "The Red Queen and the Hard Reds: Productivity Growth in American Wheat, 1800-1940," NBER Working Papers 8863, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8863
    Note: DAE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8863.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Joseph H. Davis & Christopher Hanes & Paul W. Rhode, 2009. "Harvests and Business Cycles in Nineteenth-Century America," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1675-1727.
    2. Alexander Klein & Karl Gunnar Persson & Paul Sharp, 2023. "Populism and the first wave of globalization: Evidence from the 1892 US presidential election," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 163-202.
    3. Pardey, Philip G. & Koo, Bonwoo & Nottenburg, Carol, 2004. "Creating, Protecting, And Using Crop Biotechnologies Worldwide In An Era Of Intellectual Property," Staff Papers 13600, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    4. Pardey, Philip G. & Alston, Julian M. & Chan-Kang, Connie & Magalhães, Eduardo C. & Vosti, Stephen A., 2002. "Assessing and attributing the benefits from varietal improvement research: evidence from Embrapa, Brazil," EPTD discussion papers 95, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    5. Cormac Ó Gráda, 2011. "Forum 2011," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 42(1), pages 49-69, January.
    6. Paul Sharp, 2008. "The long American grain invasion of Britain: market integration and the wheat trade between North America and Britain from the eighteenth century," Working Papers 8001, Economic History Society.
    7. Philip G. Pardey & Julian M. Alston & Connie Chan-Kang & Eduardo C. Magalhães & Stephen A. Vosti, 2006. "International and Institutional R&D Spillovers: Attribution of Benefits among Sources for Brazil's New Crop Varieties," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 88(1), pages 104-123.
    8. Olmstead, Alan L. & Rhode, Paul W., 2008. "Biological Innovation and Productivity Growth in the Antebellum Cotton Economy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(4), pages 1123-1171, December.
    9. Julian M. Alston & Philip G. Pardey, 2020. "Innovation, Growth, and Structural Change in American Agriculture," NBER Chapters, in: The Role of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Economic Growth, pages 123-165, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Julian M. Alston & William J. Martin & Philip G. Pardey, 2014. "Influences of Agricultural Technology on the Size and Importance of Food Price Variability," NBER Chapters, in: The Economics of Food Price Volatility, pages 13-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Lichtenberg, Erik, 2004. "Some Hard Truths About Agriculture and the Environment," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(1), pages 24-33, April.
    12. Pardey, Philip G. & Alston, Julian M. & Ruttan, Vernon W., 2010. "The Economics of Innovation and Technical Change in Agriculture," Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, in: Bronwyn H. Hall & Nathan Rosenberg (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Innovation, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 939-984, Elsevier.
    13. Brunt, Liam & Cannon, Edmund, 2015. "Variations in the price and quality of English grain, 1750–1914: Quantitative evidence and empirical implications," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 74-92.
    14. Parman, John, 2012. "Good schools make good neighbors: Human capital spillovers in early 20th century agriculture," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 316-334.
    15. Rajabrata Banerjee & Martin Shanahan, 2016. "The Contribution of Wheat to Australian Agriculture from 1861 to 1939," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 56(2), pages 125-150, July.
    16. repec:oup:apecpp:v:40:y:2018:i:3:p:421-444. is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Izdebski, Adam & Koloch, Grzegorz & Słoczyński, Tymon & Tycner, Marta, 2016. "On the use of palynological data in economic history: New methods and an application to agricultural output in Central Europe, 0–2000AD," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 17-39.
    18. Petra Moser, 2020. "Introduction to "Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture"," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture, pages 1-19, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Alan L. Olmstead, 2020. "Historical and Institutional Perspectives on American Agricultural Development," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(2), pages 400-418, March.
    20. Kym Anderson, 2016. "Agricultural Trade, Policy Reforms, and Global Food Security," Palgrave Studies in Agricultural Economics and Food Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-46925-0, June.
    21. Alston, Julian M. & Pardey, Philip G. & Ruttan, Vernon W., 2008. "Research Lags Revisited: Concepts and Evidence from U.S. Agriculture," Staff Papers 50091, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    22. Petra Moser, 2021. "Economics of Research and Innovation in Agriculture," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number mose-1, May.
    23. Sharp, Paul & Weisdorf, Jacob, 2013. "Globalization revisited: Market integration and the wheat trade between North America and Britain from the eighteenth century," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 88-98.
    24. Edward L. Glaeser, 2013. "A Nation Of Gamblers: Real Estate Speculation And American History," NBER Working Papers 18825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N5 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries
    • Q1 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8863. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.