Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:01:10.846Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Political Arithmetic of Large and Small

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

B. F. Stanton
B. F. Stanton*
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics, Cornell University
Get access

Extract

Most economists get caught up in one way or another with size and efficiency issues. We all play a numbers game. It may be to describe output and economic activity in any one of the sectors of the food industry. It may be to make comparisons about farm numbers or output among counties, among states or among countries. Most often it involves changes over time as well. But we are all asked to assemble statistics, to explain how these statistics are collected and to make generalizations about what these statistics mean. This is the very essence of the business of applied economists.

Type
Invited Papers
Information
Journal of the Northeastern Agricultural Economics Council , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , October 1979 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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.)

Footnotes

The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful criticisms of his colleagues particularly Paul Barkley, Richard Boisvert and Brian How.

References

Bergland, Bob. “National Dialogue on the Future of American Agriculture.” Speech, National Farmers Union Convention, Kansas City, Missouri, March 12, 1979.Google Scholar
Breimyer, Harold F. “Can the Family Farm Survive – The Problem and the Issue.” University of Missouri Special Report 219, 1978.Google Scholar
Cox, Meg. “Sundown Farmers.” The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 1979.Google Scholar
Cutler, M. Rupert. “Breathe Life Into Our Cold Statistics.” Speech at Small Farms Conference, Albuquerque, New Mexico, September 6, 1978.Google Scholar
E.S.C.S. Farm Income Statistics. USDA, Statistical Bulletin 609, July 1978.Google Scholar
E.S.C.S. “The Farm Count.” Agricultural Situation, January-February 1979.Google Scholar
Foote, Richard J. “Concepts Involved in Defining and Identifying Farms.” USDA, ERS448, June 1970.Google Scholar
Madden, J. Patrick. “Agricultural Mechanization and the Family Farm.” Pennsylvania State University, A. E. and R. S. 139, January 1979.Google Scholar
Raup, Philip M. “Some Questions of Value and Scale in American Agriculture.” AJAE, May 1978, Vol. 60: 2, pp. 303–308.Google Scholar
Reinsel, Edward L. “People With Farm Earnings – Sources and Distribution of Income.” USDA, ERS498, March 1972.Google Scholar
Schumacher, E. F. Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered. Harper and Row, New York, 1973.Google Scholar
Stanton, B. F. and Plimpton, L. M. “People, Land, and Farms: 125 Years of Change in the Northeast.” Northeast Agricultural Leadership Assembly, University of Massachusetts, March 1979.Google Scholar
U.S.D.A. Living On A Few Acres. Yearbook of Agriculture, 1978.Google Scholar
Wood, W. W. “Role of Small Farms in American Agriculture and Rural Sociology.” Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies – 1978, Farm Foundation, November 1978, pp. 45–49.Google Scholar