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Beyond the Threshold: An Analysis of the Characteristics and Behavior of Early Reaper Adopters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Alan L. Olmstead  and
Paul W. Rhode
Alan L. Olmstead
Affiliation:
Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute of Governmental Affairs at the University of California, Davis, CA 95616.
Paul W. Rhode
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Governmental Affairs.
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Abstract

This article analyzes a large quantity of new data documenting the actual characteristics and behavior of early reaper adopters. It shows that a surprisingly large number of small-scale farmers were among the early purchasers and that institutional evolution—the emergence of local markets and cooperative exchanges for reaper services—encouraged rapid diffusion. These findings call into question the standard interpretation of northern farms as self-contained production units and, more specifically, challenge the usefulness of both the farm-specific-threshold model and the family-labor-constraint model.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 1995 , pp. 27 - 57
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1995

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