Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-09T22:33:44.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The European Grain Invasion, 1870–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Kevin H. O'Rourke
Kevin H. O'Rourke
Affiliation:
Statutory Lecturer in Economics, Department of Economics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The article quantifies the impact of cheap grain on the European economy in the late nineteenth century. Falling transport costs led to dramatic declines in Anglo-American grain price gaps, but price convergence was less impressive between the U.S. and other European economies, and within Europe. Cheaper grain meant lower rents throughout Europe, and protection boosted rents, but the magnitudes involved differed between countries. Similarly, cheap grain increased real wages in Britain, but lowered them elsewhere. The grain invasion implied different shocks across countries, and this partly explains the varying trade policies pursued in Europe during this period.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , December 1997 , pp. 775 - 801
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1997

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

Aydelotte, W. O. “The Country Gentlemen and the Repeal of the Corn Laws.” English Historical Review 82, no. 322 (1967): 47–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bairoch, Paul. “European Trade Policy, 1815–1914.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. 8, edited by Mathias, Peter and Pollard, Sidney, 1–160. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Barkin, Kenneth D.The Controversy over German Industrialization 1890–1902. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970.Google Scholar
Caves, Richard E. and Jones, Ronald W.. World Trade and Payments: An Introduction. Third edition. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1981.Google Scholar
Daly, Mary E.Industrial Development and Irish National Identity, 1922–1939. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Findlay, Ronald. “International Trade and Factor Mobility with an Endogenous Land Frontier: Some General Equilibrium Implications of Christopher Columbus.” In Theory, Policy and Dynamics in International Trade: Essays in Honor of Ronald W. Jones, edited by Ethier, Wilfred J., Helpman, Elhanan and Neary, J. Peter, 38–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fogel, Robert W. “The Specification Problem in Economic History.” this JOURNAL 27, no. 3 (1967): 283–308.Google Scholar
Gerschenkron, Alexander. Bread and Democracy in Germany. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943.Google Scholar
Gourevitch, Peter. Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Harley, C. Knick. “Western Settlement and the Price of Wheat, 1872–1913.” this JOURNAL 38, no. 4 (1978): 865–78.Google Scholar
Harley, C. Knick“Transportation, the World Wheat Trade, and the Kuznets Cycle, 1850–1913.” Explorations in Economic History 17, no. 3 (1980): 218–50.Google Scholar
Harley, C. Knick. “Late Nineteenth Century Transportation, Trade and Settlement.” In The Emergence of a World Economy 1500–1914, Part II: 1850–1914, edited by Fischer, Wolfram, McInnis, R. Marvin and Schneider, Jürgen, 593–617. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1986.Google Scholar
Harley, C. Knick. “The Antebellum American Tariff: Food Exports and Manufacturing.” Explorations in Economic History 29, no. 4 (1992): 375–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, James C. “Peasants, Grain Tariffs, and Meat Quotas: Imperial German Protectionism Reexamined.” Central European History 7, no. 4 (1974): 311–31.Google Scholar
Irwin, Douglas A. “Political Economy and Peel's Repeal of the Corn Laws.” Economics and Politics 1, no. 1 (1989): 41–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, E. L.The European Miracle: Environments, Economies and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Jones, Ronald W. “A Three-Factor Model in Theory, Trade, and History.” In Trade, Balance of Payments and Growth: Papers in International Economics in Honor of Charles P. Kindleberger, edited by Bhagwati, Jagdish N., Jones, Ronald W., Mundell, Robert A. and Vanek, Jaroslav, 3–21. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1971.Google Scholar
Kindleberger, Charles P. “Group Behavior and International Trade.” Journal of Political Economy 59, no. 1 (1951): 30–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longstaff, G. B. “Rural Depopulation.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 56 (09 1893): 380–433.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. Capital. Vol. 1. New York: Vintage Books, 1977.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. R.European Historical Statistics 1750–1975. Second revised edition. New York: Facts on File, 1981.Google Scholar
Offer, Avner. The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989:Google Scholar
Offer, Avner. “Farm Tenures and Land Values in England, c. 1750–1950.” Economic History Review 44, no. 1 (1991): 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H. “The Repeal of the Corn Laws and Irish Emigration.” Explorations in Economic History 31, no. 1 (1994): 120–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H., Taylor, Alan M. and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. “Factor Price Convergence in the Late 19th Century.” International Economic Review 37, no. 3 (1996): 499–530.Google Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H, and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. “Were Heckscher and Ohlin Right? Putting History Back Into the Factor-Price-Equalization Theorem.” HIER Discussion Paper no. 1593. Cambridge, Massachusetts (05 1992).Google Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. “Late 19th Century Anglo-American Factor Price Convergence: Were Heckscher and Ohlin Right?” this JOURNAL 54, no. 4 (1994): 892–916.Google Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. “Open Economy Forces and Late 19th Century Swedish Catch-Up.” Scandinavian Economic History Review 43, no. 2 (1995): 171–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. “Erratum.” this JOURNAL 55, no. 4 (1995): 921–22.Google Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. “Education, Globalization and Catch-Up: Scandinavia in the Swedish Mirror.” Scandinavian Economic History Review 43, no. 3 (1995): 287–309.Google Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin H., and Williamson, Jeffrey G.. “Open Economy Forces and Late 19th Century Scandinavian Catch-Up.” HIER Discussion Paper no. 1709. Cambridge, Massachusetts (01, 1995).Google Scholar
Rogowski, Ronald. Commerce and Coalitions. How Trade Affects Domestic Political Arrangements. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Schonhardt-Bailey, Cheryl. “Specific Factors, Capital Markets, Portfolio Diversification, and Free Trade: Domestic Determinants of the Repeal of the Corn Laws.” World Politics 43, no. 4 (1991): 545–69.Google Scholar
Temin, Peter. “Labor Scarcity and the Problem of American Industrial Efficiency in the 1850's.” this JOURNAL 26, no. 3 (1966): 277–98.Google Scholar
Verdier, Daniel. Democracy and International Trade: Britain, France, and the United States, 1860–1990. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Webb, Steven B. “Agricultural Protection in Wilhelminian Germany: Forging an Empire with Pork and Rye.” this JOURNAL 42, no. 2 (1982): 309–26.Google Scholar
Webb, Walter Prescott. The Great Frontier. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1952.Google Scholar
Williamson, Jeffrey G. “The Impact of the Corn Laws Just Prior to Repeal.” Explorations in Economic History 27, no. 2 (1990): 123–56.Google Scholar