Rural Response to Increased Demand: Crop Choice in the Midwest, 1860–1880
研究了1860-1880年间美国中西部农业商业化过程中，农户的作物选择策略，发现基于资源禀赋的模型能解释微观层面的生产决策，挑战了商业化促进区域专业化的传统观点。
Demand for farm products grew, and the cost of marketing them shrank, between 1860 and 1880. The resulting commercialization of Midwestern agriculture has been widely discussed, but the production strategies that farmers pursued have not been adequately described or modeled. I find that an endowment-contingent model of crop choice provides a consistent explanation for farm production strategies at the micro-level on Missouri farms. The results call for a re-examination of the conventional wisdom that commercialization fostered specialization at the regional level.