The Diffusion of Tractor Technology

Dinah Duffy Martini and Eugene Silberberg

The Journal of Economic History, 2006, vol. 66, issue 2, 354-389

Abstract: A substantial literature exists claiming the adoption of tractors was inefficiently slow. We develop a linear programming model of farms that specifically incorporates the opportunity cost of the farmer's time and apply it to farms in Iowa during the interwar period. We develop technological coefficients derived at the task level, based on the data and agricultural reports from that period. By valuing the time saved by tractors, we demonstrate that the seemingly slow rate of tractor adoption was in fact wealth maximizing. Tractors were widely adopted only after the improvement in implements that came late in this period.

Date: 2006
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