Learning, Capital Accumulation, and the Transformation of California Agriculture

Paul Rhode

The Journal of Economic History, 1995, vol. 55, issue 4, 773-800

Abstract: Between 1890 and 1914, California agriculture rapidly shifted from extensive to intensive crops, emerging as one of the world's major suppliers of Mediterranean products. Based on an analysis of new data on price and quantity movements, this article calls into question the traditional emphasis on changes in transportation, water, and labor market conditions as explanations for California's transformation. It argues that increases in fruit supply outpaced increases in demand and that declining farm interest rates and biological learning played crucial, if relatively neglected, roles in the intensification process.

Date: 1995
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