Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Modelling the Historical Consolidation of Family Farms Through Time

经济学博士论文研究：模拟家庭农场随时间的历史整合

• 批准号: 2117324
• 负责人: Price Fishback
• 金额: $ 1.96万
• 依托单位: University of Arizona
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-08-01 至 2023-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2117324&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Economics; Modelling

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).This research answers an important question in theoretical economics---how a seemingly competitive industry like agriculture comes to be dominated by a few firms. The Homestead Act, beginning in 1863, granted 3 million farmers 160 to 640-acre plots of farmland in the western part of the United States. The Act, which fundamentally reshaped the demographic and agricultural makeup of the American West, is widely regarded to be one of the most influential land laws in American history. Yet several important aspects of this Act, including its impact on the consolidation of farms in later years, have not been studied partly because of lack of appropriate detailed data. This research project will collect, digitize, merge millions of land transaction records and individual owner characteristics, and use the data to study why owners chose to homestead or purchase land allocated to them and how the ownership or homestead decision influenced farm consolidation in the 20th century as well. The results of this research will not only explain why competitive industries, such as agriculture, become a non-competitive one and thus provide important inputs into competition policies. This will help improve the functioning of the US economy, hence increase the growth rate of the economy. This research uses four projects to analyze the mechanisms behind the decision to purchase or homestead land in Kansas, and the causal effects of that decision on a range of future outcomes. The first project predicts settler decisions to purchase or homestead based on land characteristics at the farm level; the second project studies selection into purchasing and homesteading based on heterogeneous production functions; the third project estimates the option value created by homesteading using a multi-period structural model, while the final project explores the effect of the decision to homestead on the subsequent rate and method of farm consolidation over time. This project develops a structural industrial organization model of endogenous mergers. In the process, it relates the economics of farm consolidation to the industrial organization literature on horizontal mergers. Agricultural markets in the 1870’s were characterized by many small farms that produced homogeneous agricultural goods and were price-takers in both inputs and outputs. This research builds and estimate a competitive model of endogenous mergers to explain farm consolidation. The results of this research will not only explain why competitive industries become a non-competitive ones and thus provide important inputs into competition policies. This will help improve the functioning of the US economy, hence increase the growth rate of the economy.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该奖项的全部或部分资金来源于《2021 年美国救援计划法案》（公法 117-2）。 这项研究回答了理论经济学中的一个重要问题——像农业这样看似竞争性的行业是如何被1863 年开始的《宅地法案》授予美国西部 300 万农民 160 至 640 英亩的农田，从根本上重塑了美国的人口和农业构成。美国西部土地法被广泛认为是美国历史上最有影响力的土地法之一，但该法的几个重要方面，包括其对后来农场合并的影响，尚未得到研究，部分原因是缺乏适当的研究。该研究项目将收集、数字化、合并数以百万计的土地交易记录和个人所有者特征，并利用这些数据来研究所有者选择宅基地或购买分配给他们的土地的原因以及所有权或宅基地决策如何影响农场整合。也是20世纪的研究成果。不仅可以解释为什么农业等竞争性产业变成非竞争性产业，从而为竞争政策提供重要投入，这将有助于改善美国经济的运作，从而提高经济的增长率。四个项目分析堪萨斯州购买或宅基地决定背后的机制，以及该决定对一系列未来结果的因果影响。第一个项目根据农场的土地特征预测定居者购买或宅基地的决定；第二个项目研究购买和宅基地的选择基于异质生产函数；第三个项目使用多时期结构模型估计了宅基地创造的期权价值，而最终项目则探讨了宅基地决策对后续农场整合率和方法的影响。发展了内生合并整合的结构性产业组织模型，在此过程中，它将农业经济学与横向合并的产业组织文献联系起来。1870 年代农业市场的特点是许多生产同质农产品的小农场。这项研究建立并估计了一个内生合并的竞争模型来解释农场整合。这项研究的结果不仅可以解释为什么竞争性行业变成非竞争性行业，从而提供重要的投入。这将有助于改善美国经济的运作，从而提高经济的增长率。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。