Agricultural Productivity in the Early Ottoman Empire

Metin Cosgel ()

No 2004-35, Working papers from University of Connecticut, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper provides standardized estimates of labor productivity in arable farming in selected regions of the early Ottoman Empire, including Jerusalem and neighboring districts in eastern Mediterranean; Bursa and Malatya in Anatolia; and Thessaly, Herzegovina, and Budapest in eastern Europe. I use data from the tax registers of the Ottoman Empire to estimate grain output per worker, standardized (in bushels of wheat equivalent) to allow productivity comparisons within these regions and with other times and places. The results suggest that Ottoman agriculture in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had achieved levels of labor productivity that compared favorably even with most European countries circa 1850.

Keywords: Ottoman Empire; labor productivity; agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N1 N3 N5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa
Date: 2004-11, Revised 2005-10
Note: This paper previously circulated under the title "Agricultural Productivity in Eastern Europe and Western Asia in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries"

Forthcoming in Research in Economic History.

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http://www.econ.uconn.edu/working/2004-35r.pdf Full text (revised version) (application/pdf)
http://www.econ.uconn.edu/working/2004-35.pdf Full text (original version) (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uct:uconnp:2004-35

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