Environmental Catastrophe and the Direction of Invention: Evidence from the American Dust Bowl

Jacob Moscona

No 34438, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper investigates how innovation responded to and shaped the economic impact of the American Dust Bowl, an environmental catastrophe that led to widespread soil erosion on the US Plains during the 1930s. Combining data on county-level erosion, the historical geography of crop production, and crop-specific innovation, I document that in the wake of the environmental crisis, agricultural technology development was strongly and persistently re-directed toward more Dust Bowl-exposed crops and, within crops, toward bio-chemical and planting technologies that could directly mitigate economic losses from environmental distress. County-level exposure to Dust Bowl-induced innovation significantly dampened the effect of land erosion on agricultural land values and revenue. These results highlight the role of crises in spurring innovation and the importance of endogenous technological progress as an adaptive force in the face of disasters.

JEL-codes: O3 O31 O33 Q1 Q16 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env, nep-his, nep-ino and nep-tid
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