Reshaping the landscape: The impact and diffusion of the tractor in American agriculture, 1910-1960

• 成果类型: Review
• 署名作者: University of California System; University of California Davis
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• 发表日期: 2001
• 页码: 663-698
• 关键词: threshold

摘要

This article analyzes the revolutionary impact the tractor had on rural America and examines the economic, technological, and institutional factors governing the machine's diffusion. Our simultaneous-equation regression model helps decipher the complex relationship between farm scale and diffusion. In addition, analyzing diffusion as a capital replacement problem reveals that the shift to the new technology was far more rapid than what has generally been thought and provides anew perspective on the long co-existence of both horses and tractors on farms.