Land Abundance, Interest-Profit Rates and Nineteenth Century American and British Technology

Authors

Alexander J. Field, Santa Clara UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-1983

Publisher

Economic History Association / Cambridge University Press

Abstract

Virtually all sectors of the nineteenth-century American economy were less capital-intensive than their British counterparts. This resulted from persistently higher American interest/profit rates, due in turn to American land abundance. The paper adduces the evidence in support of these propositions, and explores their interrelationships through the use of a linear model inspired by the writings of David Ricardo.

Comments

Reprinted in in Peter Temin, ed. Industrialization in North America, vol. 6 1994 (Blackwell), pp. 483-510.

Recommended Citation

Field, Alexander J. 1983. "Land Abundance, Interest-Profit Rates and Nineteenth Century American and British Technology," Journal of Economic History 43 (June): 405-31.