Feeding the World An Economic History of Agriculture, 1800-2000

406 Pages·2005·2.04 MB·English

by  Giovanni Federico

Feeding the World
THE PRINCETON ECONOMIC HISTORY
OF THE WESTERN WORLD
Joel Mokyr, Editor
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Feeding the World
an economic history of
agriculture, 1800–2000
Giovanni Federico
princeton university press
princeton and oxford
Copyright © 2005 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock,
Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved
Second printing, and first paperback printing, 2009
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-691-13853-4
The Library of Congress has cataloged the cloth edition of this book as follows
Federico, Giovanni, 1954–
Feeding the world : an economic history of agriculture, 1800–2000 / Giovanni Federico.
p. cm. (The Princeton economic history of the Western World)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-12051-5 (cl. : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-691-12051-X (cl. : alk. paper)
1. Agriculture—Economic aspects—History—19th century. 2. Agriculture—Economic
aspects—History—20th century. I. Title.
HD1411.F43 2005
338.1'09'034–dc22
2004058634
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Garamond
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
List of Tables ix
Preface xiii
Chapter One
Introduction 1
Chapter Two
Why Is Agriculture Different? 5
2.1Introduction 5
2.2Agriculture and the Environment: An Uneasy Relationship 5
2.3Factor Endowment and the Characteristics of Agriculture 13
Chapter Three
Trends in the Long Run 16
3.1Introduction 16
3.2Output 16
3.3Prices 21
3.4The Composition of Agricultural Output 26
3.5Trade 28
Chapter Four
Patterns of Growth: The Inputs 31
4.1Introduction 31
4.2Land 31
4.3Capital 40
4.4Labor 56
4.5Conclusion: Factor Endowment and
Factor Prices in the Long Run 64
Chapter Five
The Causes of Growth: The Increase in Productivity 69
5.1Introduction 69
5.2The Productivity of Land and Labor 70
5.3The Total Factor Productivity 74
5.4Conclusion: On the Interpretation of Total
Factor Productivity Growth 82
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vi CONTENTS
Chapter Six
Technical Progress in Agriculture 83
6.1Introduction: Productivity Growth and Technical Progress 83
6.2The Major Innovations 84
6.3The Macroeconomics of Innovations:
Factor Prices and Technical Progress 93
6.4The Microeconomics of Agricultural Innovation:
Appropriability, Complementarity, Environment, and Risk 101
6.5The Microeconomics of Agricultural Innovation:
Research Institutions and Technical Progress 105
6.6Conclusion: On the Causes of Technical Progress 114
Chapter Seven
The Microeconomics of Agricultural Institutions 117
7.1Introduction: What Are the Institutions,
and Why Should We Care about Them? 117
7.2Property Rights 118
7.3The “Structure”: Matching Land and Labor 121
7.4Finding the Money: Formal and Informal Credit 128
7.5The Co-operative: The Best of All Possible Worlds? 133
7.6Conclusion: Is There an “Ideal” Farm? 136
Chapter Eight
Agricultural Institutions and Growth 143
8.1Introduction 143
8.2Prelude: The Establishing of Modern Property Rights 144
8.3Meddling with Property Rights: Land Reform
and Other Structural Interventions 149
8.4The “Structural” Change in the Long Run 152
8.5The Development of Markets 160
8.6Self-help: The Growth of the Co-operative Movement 168
8.7Institutions and Agricultural Growth: The Creation of Property
Rights and “Structural” Interventions 172
8.8Institutions and Agricultural Growth:
Landownership, Farm Size, and Contracts 177
8.9Institutions andAgricultural Growth: The Development of Markets 181
8.10Conclusion: Did Institutions Really Matter? 186
Chapter Nine
The State and the Market 187
9.1Introduction: On the Design of Agricultural Policies 187
9.2Before 1914: The Era of Laissez Faire 189
9.3The Interwar Years: The Great Discontinuity 191
9.4The OECD Countries after 1945: The Era of Surpluses 196
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CONTENTS vii
9.5The Less Developed Countries after Independence:
The Green Revolution and the “Development” Policies 201
9.6The Socialist Countries 205
9.7On the Effects of Agricultural Policies 211
9.8Conclusion: The Political Economy of Agricultural Policies 215
Chapter Ten
Conclusions: Agriculture and Economic Growth in the Long Run 221
10.1Fifteen Stylized Facts 221
10.2Agriculture and Economic Growth: Some Theory 222
10.3Agriculture and Economic Growth:
Debates and Historical Evidence 226
10.4Concluding Remarks: A Look to the Future 231
Statistical Appendix 233
Notes 251
Bibliography 325
Index 381
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