Increasing Returns and the Genesis of American Resource Abundance

Paul David and Gavin Wright

Industrial and Corporate Change, 1997, vol. 6, issue 2, 203-45

Abstract: The USA became the world's leading mineral-producing nation between 1870 and 1910, a development paralleled by the rising resource-intensity of American manufacturing. This paper challenges the premise that resource abundance simply reflected the country's geological endowment of mineral deposits. Instead, in the century following 1850 the USA exploited its natural resource potentials to a far greater extent than other countries, and did so across virtually the entire range of industrial minerals. The paper argues that "natural resource abundance" was an endogenous, "socially constructed" condition that was not geologically preordained. It examines the complex legal, institutional, technological and organizational adaptations that shaped the US supply-responses to the expanding domestic and international industrial demands for minerals and mineral products. It suggests that strong "positive feedbacks"--even in the exploitation of depletable resources--were responsible for the explosive growth of the American minerals economy. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (129)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:oup:indcch:v:6:y:1997:i:2:p:203-45

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Industrial and Corporate Change is currently edited by Josef Chytry

More articles in Industrial and Corporate Change from Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().