In the last two centuries, agriculture has been an outstanding, if somewhat neglected,
success story. Agriculture has fed an ever-growing population with an increasing variety of …

A declining agricultural employment share is a key feature of economic development. Its
main drivers are: improvements in agricultural technology combined with Engel's law …

In the last two centuries, the reallocation of labor out of agriculture has been a dominant
feature of structural change and economic growth in the United States. This paper uses an …

In much of the world today, populations are richer, taller, and enjoy longer healthier lives
than their counterparts in the past. Cliometricians debate the extent to which this “health …

In this paper, we provide a history of the economic impact of mechanical refrigeration in the
United States. We also examine spatial and temporal aspects of market integration …

Although the principles of refrigeration have been understood for thousands of years, the
widespread use of mechanical refrigeration in the processing, shipping, and storing of …

World population has increased six-fold in the last two centuries, and thus agricultural
production must have grown as well. The last fifty years of this increase are covered by the …

New TFP estimates drawn from the neglected census of 1831 for Lower Canada are used to
test the controversial (but still dominant) traditional “poor French farmers” explanation for a …

From 1870 until after World War I, reformers led an effort to place children from orphanages,
asylums, and children's homes with farming families. The farmers received free labor in …

This article argues that the 1851 census of Canada East (the modern‐day province of
Quebec) requires a set of important corrections. Using corrections based on ethnic origin …