State-Directed Diffusion of Technology: The Mechanization of Cotton-Farming in Soviet Central Asia

Richard Pomfret

No 2000-03, School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers from University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy

Abstract: When Soviet central planners began to mechanize the cotton harvest in earnest in 1958, they expected more rapid diffusion than the market-driven process that had begun in the United States a decade earlier. But despite high output of cotton-picking machines, the share of the crop harvested mechanically grew more slowly than in the United States. The factor proportions in Central Asia did not justify mechanization: although planners could enforce introduction of the new technology, investment in cotton-harvesting machines was largely a waste of resources. The costs of premature introduction are estimated at over one billion US dollars in 1960s prices.

Keywords: technological change in agriculture; innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N55 O13 O33 P32 Q16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2000
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Published in The Journal of Economic History, 2002, vol. 62, pp. 170-188

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adl:wpaper:2000-03

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