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Agricultural Productivity Across Prussia During the Industrial Revolution: A Thünen Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 August 2012

MICHAEL KOPSIDIS  and
NIKOLAUS WOLF
MICHAEL KOPSIDIS*
Affiliation:
Research Associate, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO), Department of Agricultural Markets, Marketing, and World Agricultural Trade, Theodor-Lieser-Strasse 2, 06120 Halle (Saale),, Germany. E-mail: kopsidis@iamo.de.
NIKOLAUS WOLF*
Affiliation:
Professor, Institute of Economic History, Humboldt University Berlin, Spandauer Strasse 1, 10178 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: nikolaus.wolf@wiwi.hu-berlin.de.
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Abstract

This article explores the pattern of land rents and agricultural productivity across nineteenth-century Prussia to gain new insights on the causes of the “Little Divergence” between European regions. We argue that agriculture reacted to urban and industrial development rather than shaping it. In the spirit of Johann von Thünen and Ernst Engel, we develop a theoretical model to test how access to urban demand affected agricultural development. We show that the effect of urban demand is causal and that it is in line with recent findings on a limited degree of interregional market integration in nineteenth-century Prussia.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , 22 August 2012 , pp. 634 - 670
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

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