Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T17:56:33.140Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A New Look at U.S. Agricultural Productivity Growth, 1800–1910

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Lisa Geib-Gundersen  and
Elizabeth Zahrt
Lisa Geib-Gundersen
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521.
Elizabeth Zahrt
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A debate has recently been re-ignited over the pace of long-run productivity growth in nineteenth-century agriculture. Before 1966 the view was one of accelerated productivity over the course of the century, and this view was confirmed by the statistics on farm gross product published in 1960 by Marvin Towne and Wayne Rasmussen. The appearance in 1966 of Stanley Lebergott's labor force series changed this traditional perspective. When combined with Towne and Rasmussen's output figures, Lebergott's figures suggested that productivity growth was slower after the Civil War than before, calling into question the more plausible pattern of postbellum increases. A few historians were skeptical of these new findings, but were unable to dispute the seemingly solid foundation upon which they were built. Finally in 1993, Thomas Weiss argued that the skeptics were in fact correct to be wary of Lebergott's revisions.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , September 1996 , pp. 679 - 686
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abel, Marjorie, and Nancy, Folbre. “A Methodology for Revising Estimates: Female Market Participation in the U.S. Before 1940.” Historical Methods 23, no. 4 (1990): 167–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carter, Susan B., and Richard, Sutch. “Fixing the Facts: Editing of the 1880 Census of Occupations with Implications for Long-Term Labor Force Trends and the Sociology of Official Statistics.” Historical Methods 29, no. 1 (1996):1–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geib-Gundersen, Lisa. “The Undercount of Productive Women in the U.S., 1880–1910.” Prepared for the Western Economic Association Conference, 07 1995.Google Scholar
Lebergott, Stanley. “Labor Force and Employment, 1800–1960.”. In Output, Employment, and Productivity, edited by Brady, D., 117–209. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1966.Google Scholar
Towne, Marvin, and Rasmussen, Wayne. “Farm Gross Product and Gross Investment in the Nineteenth Century.” In Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century. NBER Studies in Income and Wealth, vol. 24, edited by William, N. Parker, 255–312. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of the Interior. Bureau of the Census. Statistics of the Population of the United States. Washington, DC: GPO, 1880–1910.Google Scholar
U.S. Departmane of the Interior. Twenty Censuses: Population and Housing Questions 1790–1950. Washington, DC: GPO, 1979.Google Scholar
Weiss, Thomas. “Estimation of the Farm/Nonfarm Distribution of Laborers, Not Otherwise Specified by State, 1850 to 1900.” Working Paper, University of Kansas and National Bureau of Economic Research, 08 1989.Google Scholar
Weiss, Thomas. “Long Term Changes in U.S. Agricultural Output per Worker, 1800 to 1900.” Economic History Review 46, no. 2 (1993): 324–41.Google Scholar