Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T22:22:50.732Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Agricultural Productivity Across Prussia During the Industrial Revolution: A Thünen Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2012

MICHAEL KOPSIDIS  and
NIKOLAUS WOLF
MICHAEL KOPSIDIS*
Affiliation:
Research Associate, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO), Department of Agricultural Markets, Marketing, and World Agricultural Trade, Theodor-Lieser-Strasse 2, 06120 Halle (Saale),, Germany. E-mail: [email protected].
NIKOLAUS WOLF*
Affiliation:
Professor, Institute of Economic History, Humboldt University Berlin, Spandauer Strasse 1, 10178 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the pattern of land rents and agricultural productivity across nineteenth-century Prussia to gain new insights on the causes of the “Little Divergence” between European regions. We argue that agriculture reacted to urban and industrial development rather than shaping it. In the spirit of Johann von Thünen and Ernst Engel, we develop a theoretical model to test how access to urban demand affected agricultural development. We show that the effect of urban demand is causal and that it is in line with recent findings on a limited degree of interregional market integration in nineteenth-century Prussia.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , 22 August 2012 , pp. 634 - 670
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

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

Acemoglu, D., et al. “The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution.” American Economic Review 101, no. 7 (2011): 3286–3307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. “The Efficiency and Distributional Consequences of Eighteenth-Century Enclosures.” Economic Journal 92, no. 368 (1982): 937–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C.Enclosure and the Yeoman. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. “Economic Structure and Agricultural Productivity in Europe, 1300-1800.” European Review of Economic History 4, no. 1 (2000): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. “The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War.” Explorations in Economic History 38, no. 4 (2001): 411–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C.The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aston, T. H., and Philpin, C. H. E.. The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Preindustrial Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckmann, M. J. “Von Thünen Revisted: A Neoclassical Land Use Model.” The Swedish Journal of Economics 74, no. 1 (1972): 1–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boserup, M. “Agrarstruktur und Take Off.” In Industrielle Revolution. Wirtschaftliche Aspekte, edited by Braun, R., et al., 309–30. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Wietsch, 1972 [1963].Google Scholar
Bosker, M., and Buringh, E.. “City Seeds: Geography and the Origins of the European City System.” CEPR Discussion Papers No. 8066, London: CEPR, 2010.Google Scholar
Campbell, B. “Agriculture and National Incomes in Europe, c. 1300-1850.” Plenary Lecture at the Rural History 2010, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, 13-16 September 2010. http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/gap/Staff/AcademicStaff/ProfBruceCampbell/FileStore/Filetoupload,208573,en.pdf (accessed 03 April 2012).Google Scholar
Chirot, D.The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe: Economics and Politics from the Middle Ages Until the Early Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Clark, G. “Productivity Growth without Technical Change in European Agriculture Before 1850.” The Journal of Economic History 47, no. 2 (1987): 419–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, G. “Land Rental Values and the Agrarian Economy: England and Wales, 1500-1914.” European Review of Economic History 6, no. 3 (2002): 281–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vries, J.The Dutch Rural Economy in the Golden Age, 1500-1700. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Engel, E. “Die Getreidepreise, die Ernteerträge und der Getreidehandel im preußischen Staate.” Zeitschrift des Königlich Preussischen Statistischen Bureaus 1, no. 10 (1861): 249–87.Google Scholar
Engel, E. “Die Grösse, Beschaffenheit und Besteuerung der Fläche des preussischen Staatsgebietes.” Zeitschrift des Königlich Preussischen Statistischen Bureaus 6, no. 1 and 7 (1866): 1–31, 162–209.Google Scholar
Engel, E. “Wie hoch belastet in Preussen die Grundsteuer die Landwirtschaft?” Zeitschrift des Königlich Preussischen Statistischen Bureaus 7, no. 4 (1867): 93–157.Google Scholar
Fertig, G.Äcker, Wirte, Gaben. Ländlicher Bodenmarkt und liberale Eigentumsordnung im Westfalen des 19. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, H.Regionale Entwicklungsdisparitäten im deutschen Industrialisierungsprozess, 1849-1939: eine empirisch-analytische Untersuchung. Münster: LIT Verlag, 1994.Google Scholar
Fremdling, R., and Hohorst, G.. “Marktintegration der preussischen Wirtschaft im 19. Jahrhundert. Skizze eines Forschungsansatzes zur Fluktuation der Roggenpreise zwischen 1821 und 1865.” In Industrialisierung und Raum, edited by Tilly, R. and Fremdling, R., 56–101. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1979.Google Scholar
Gerschenkron, A.Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective: A Book of Essays. Harvard, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Grantham, G. “The Diffusion of the New Husbandry in Northern France.” The Journal of Economic History 38, no. 2 (1978): 311–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grantham, G. “Agricultural Supply During the Industrial Revolution: French Evidence and European Implications.” The Journal of Economic History 49, no. 1 (1989a): 43–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grantham, G. “Agrarian Organization in the Century of Industrialization: Europe, Russia, and North America.” Research in Economic History, Suppl. 5 (1989b): 1–24.Google Scholar
Grantham, G. “Contra Ricardo: On the Macroeconomics of Preindustrial Economies.” European Review of Economic History 3, no. 2 (1999): 199–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunst, P.Agrarian Development and Social Change in Eastern Europe, 14th-19th Centuries. Aldershot: Variorum, 1996.Google Scholar
Harnisch, H. “Produktivkräfte und Produktionsverhältnisse in der Landwirtschaft der Magdeburger Börde von der Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zum Beginn des Zuckerrübenanbaus in der Mitte der dreißiger Jahre des 19. Jahrhunderts.” In Landwirtschaft und Kapitalismus. Zur Entwicklung der ökonomischen und sozialen Verhältnisse in der Magdeburger Börde vom Ausgang des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ende des ersten Weltkrieges, edited by Rach, H.-J. and Weissel, B., 67-173. 1. Halbband, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1978.Google Scholar
Harnisch, H.Kapitalistische Agrarreform und industrielle Revolution. Weimar: Böhlau, 1984.Google Scholar
Harnisch, H. “Peasants and Markets: The Backround to the Agrarian Reforms in Feudal Prussia East of Elbe, 1760-1807.” In The German Peasantry, edited by Evans, R. J. and Lee, W. R., 37–70. London: Croom-Helm, 1986.Google Scholar
Harris, C. D. “The Market as a Factor in the Localization of Industry in the United States.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 44, no. 4 (1954): 315–48.Google Scholar
Hoffman, P. T.Growth in a Traditional Society: The French Countryside, 1450-1815. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hohorst, G. “Regionale Entwicklungsunterschiede im Industrialisierungsprozess Preussens: ein auf Ungleichgewichten basierendes Entwicklungsmodell.” In Region und Industrialisierung, edited by Pollard, S., 215–38. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, A., and Richter, H.. “Die Großhandelspreise in Deutschland von 1792 bis 1934.” Sonderhefte des Instituts für Konjunkturforschung 37. Berlin: Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt Hamburg, 1935.Google Scholar
Knapp, G. F.Die Bauernbefreiung und der Ursprung der Landarbeiter in den älteren Theilen Preussens, 2 volumes. München: Duncker & Humblot, 1927 [1887].Google Scholar
Komlos, J.Nutrition and Economic Development in the Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopsidis, M.Marktintegration und Entwicklung der westfälischen Landwirtschaft, 1780-1880. Münster: LIT Verlag, 1996.Google Scholar
Kopsidis, M. “The Creation of a Westphalian Rye Market, 1820-1870: Leading and Following Regions, a Co-Integration Analysis.” Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 2002, no. 2 (2002): 85–112.Google Scholar
Kopsidis, M.Agrarentwicklung. Historische Agrarrevolutionen und Entwicklungsökonomik. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2006.Google Scholar
Kopsidis, M. “Northwest Germany, 1750-2000.” In The Agro-Food Market: Production, Distribution, and Consumption (Rural Economy and Society in Northwestern Europe, 500-2000), edited by van Molle, L. and Seghers, Y.. Turnhout: Brepols (in print), 2012.Google Scholar
Kopsidis, M., and Hockmann, H.. “Technical Change in Westphalian Peasant Agriculture and the Rise of the Ruhr, circa 1830-1880.” European Review of Economic History 14, no. 2 (2010): 209–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Köttgen, A.Studien über Getreideverkehr und Getreidepreise in Deutschland. Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1890.Google Scholar
Krugman, P.Geography and Trade. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Kussmaul, A.A General View of the Rural Economy of England, 1538-1840. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. “The Enclosure of Open Fields: Preface to a Study of Its Impact on the Efficiency of English Agriculture in the Eighteenth Century.” The Journal of Economic History 32, no. 1 (1972): 15–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. “The Economics of Enclosure: A Market Analysis.” In European Peasants and Their Markets, edited by Parker, W. N. and Jones, E. L., 123-60. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Meitzen, A.Der Boden und die landwirthschaftlichen Verhältnisse des Preussischen Staates nach dem Gebietsumfange vor 1866. 8 volumes. Berlin: Wiegandt & Hempel, 1968ff (1868 = Vol. 1, 1869 = Vol. 4, 1871a = Vol. 3, 1871b = atlas-volume).Google Scholar
Müller-Wille, W.Westfalen. Landschaftliche Ordnung und Bindung eines Landes. Muenster: Aschendorff Verlag, 1981 [1952].Google Scholar
Pamuk, S. “The Black Death and the Origins of the ‘Great Divergence' Across Europa.” European Review of Economic History 11, no. 3 (2007): 289–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peet, R. “The Spatial Expansion of Commercial Agriculture in the Nineteenth Century: A Von Thünen Interpretation.” Economic Geography 45, no. 4 (1969): 283–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peet, R. “Von Thünen Theory and the Dynamics of Agricultural Expansion.” Explorations in Economic History 8, no. 2 (1970): 181–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollard, S.Peaceful Conquest: The Industrialization of Europe, 1760-1970. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Pomeranz, K.The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Preussische Statistik. Die Ergebnisse der Berufszählung vom 5. Juni 1882, vol. 76, part 3, Berlin, 1885.Google Scholar
Samuelson, P. “The Transfer Problem and Transport Costs: Analysis of Effects of Trade Impediments.” The Economic Journal: The Journal of the Royal Economic Society 64, no. 254 (1954): 264–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, P. “Thünen at Two Hundred.” Journal of Economic Literature 21, no. 4 (1983): 1468–88.Google Scholar
Sartorius von Waltershausen, A.Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 1815-1914. Jena: Fischer, 1923.Google Scholar
Schiller, R.Vom Rittergut zum Großgrundbesitz. Ökonomische und soziale Transformationsprozesse der ländlichen Eliten in Brandenburg im 19. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sharp, P. “1846 and All That: The Rise and Fall of British Wheat Protection in the Nineteenth Century.” Discussion Papers, Department of Economics 06, no. 14, University of Copenhagen, 2006, http://www.econ.ku.dk/Research/Publications/pink/2006/0614.pdf (accessed 03 April 2012).Google Scholar
Smith, A.An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Edited from K. Sutherland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988 [1776].Google Scholar
Sombart, W.Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft im neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Berlin: Bondi, 1919 [1903].Google Scholar
Spoerer, M.Steuerlast, Steuerinzidenz und Steuerwettbewerb. Verteilungswirkungen der Besteuerung in Preußen und Würrtemberg. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stock, J. H., and Yogo, M.. “Testing for Weak Instruments in Linear IV Regression.” Technical Working Paper Series 284. NBER, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thünen, J. H. von. Der isolierte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirtschaft und Nationalökonomie. Edited from H. Lehmann and L. Werner, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1990 [1826].CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uebele, M. “International and National Wheat Market Integration in the Nineteenth Century: A Comovement Analysis.” Working Paper Center for Quantitative Economics 4, University of Muenster, 2009.Google Scholar
Uebele, M. “Demand Matters: German Wheat Market Integration, 1806-1855 in a European Context.” Working Paper Center for Quantitative Economics 11, University of Muenster, 2010.Google Scholar
Uekötter, F.Die Wahrheit ist auf dem Feld. Eine Wissensgeschichte der deutschen Landwirtschaft. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010.Google Scholar
Van Zanden, J. L. “The First Green Revolution: The Growth of Production and Productivity in European Agriculture, 1870-1914.” Economic History Review 44, no. 2 (1991): 215–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Zanden, J. L. “The Development of Agricultural Productivity in Europe, 1500-1800.” In Land Productivity and Agro-Systems in the North Sea Area, edited by van Bavel, B. J. P. and Thoen, E., 357–75. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999.Google Scholar
Wallerstein, I.The Modern World System. Vol. 1: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press, 1974.Google Scholar
Warriner, D.Economics of Peasant Farming. London: Cass, 1964 [1939].Google Scholar
Weber, M. “Kapitalismus und Agrarverfassung.” Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft 108, no. 3 (1952 [1906]): 431–52.Google Scholar
Wehler, H.-U.Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, 1700-1815, Vol. 1. München: C. H. Beck, 1987.Google Scholar
Wolf, N. “Was Germany Ever United? Evidence from Intra- and International Trade, 1885-1933.” The Journal of Economic History 69, no. 3 (2009): 846–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrigley, E. A.People, Cities, and Wealth: The Transformation of Traditional Society. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. A.Continuity, Chance, and Change: The Character of the Industrial Revolution in England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.CrossRefGoogle Scholar