Populism and the First Wave of Globalization: Evidence from the 1892 US Presidential Election

Paul Sharp, Alexander Klein and Karl Gunnar Persson

No 15076, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The reasons for the famous agrarian unrest in the United States between 1870 and 1900 remain debated. We argue that they are, at least in part, consistent with a simple economic explanation. Falling transportation costs allowed for the extension of the frontier, where farmers received the world price minus the transaction costs involved in getting their produce to market. Many perceived these costs to be unfairly large, owing to the perceived market power of rail firms and the discriminatory practices of middlemen, with farmers closer to the frontier most affected. Consistent with this, we find that the protest, as measured by vote shares for the Populists in the 1892 Presidential elections, is negatively related to wheat prices, transportation costs, and rail network density.

Keywords: agriculture; Globalization; Grain invasion; Populism; United states (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F6 N51 N71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-int
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15076 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: Populism and the first wave of globalization: Evidence from the 1892 US presidential election (2023)
Working Paper: Populism and the First Wave of Globalization: Evidence from the 1892 US Presidential Election (2020)
Working Paper: Populism and the First Wave of Globalization: Evidence from the 1892 US Presidential Election (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15076

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15076

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().