IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/exehis/v45y2008i2p199-206.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The postbellum demand for cotton revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Craft, Erik D.
  • Monks, James

Abstract

The literature offers both supply-side and cotton demand-side explanations for the reduced level and growth of income in the postbellum South. Demand-side evidence begins with a single-equation relationship regressing the price of cotton on quantity and a trend term, although subsequent researchers have critiqued the economic significance of the supposed slowed growth in demand. Using a system of simultaneous equations, which allows for correction both for autocorrelation in the error terms and correlation of the error terms across equations, we find cotton demand to be unit elastic from 1865--1866 to 1894--1895 and that it grew between 1.1% and 2.8% a year.

Suggested Citation

  • Craft, Erik D. & Monks, James, 2008. "The postbellum demand for cotton revisited," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 199-206, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:45:y:2008:i:2:p:199-206
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014-4983(07)00055-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ransom, Roger & Sutch, Richard, 1975. "The impact of the Civil War and of emancipation on Southern agriculture," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 1-28, January.
    2. David G. Surdam, 1998. "King Cotton: Monarch or Pretender? The State of the Market for Raw Cotton on the Eve of the American Civil War," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 51(1), pages 113-132, February.
    3. Irwin James R., 1994. "Explaining the Decline in Southern per Capita Output after Emancipation," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 336-356, July.
    4. Wright, Gavin, 1979. "World Demand for Cotton during the Nineteenth Century: Reply," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 1023-1024, December.
    5. Hanson, John R., 1979. "World Demand for Cotton during the Nineteenth Century: Wright's Estimates Re-examined," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(4), pages 1015-1021, December.
    6. Wright, Gavin, 1974. "Cotton Competition and the Post-Bellum Recovery of the American South," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 610-635, September.
    7. Alston, Lee J. & Higgs, Robert, 1982. "Contractual Mix in Southern Agriculture since the Civil War: Facts, Hypotheses, and Tests," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 327-353, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Philipp Ager & Leah Boustan & Katherine Eriksson, 2021. "The Intergenerational Effects of a Large Wealth Shock: White Southerners after the Civil War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(11), pages 3767-3794, November.
    2. Irwin, Douglas A., 2003. "The optimal tax on antebellum US cotton exports," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 275-291, August.
    3. Jaworski, Taylor, 2009. "War and wealth: economic opportunity before and after the Civil War, 1850-1870," Economic History Working Papers 22303, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    4. Mitchener, Kris James & McLean, Ian W, 2003. "The Productivity of US States since 1880," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(1), pages 73-114, March.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Alexander Wolitzky, 2011. "The Economics of Labor Coercion," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(2), pages 555-600, March.
    6. Joseph Davis & Vanguard Group; Christopher Hanes, 2004. "Primary Sector Shocks and Early American Industrialization," 2004 Meeting Papers 154, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Jung, Yeonha, 2020. "The long reach of cotton in the US South: Tenant farming, mechanization, and low-skill manufacturing," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    8. Laura Panza & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2015. "Did Muhammad Ali foster industrialization in early nineteenth-century Egypt?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(1), pages 79-100, February.
    9. Williamson, Jeffrey G. & Panza, Laura, 2013. "Did Muhammad Ali Foster Industrialization in Early 19th Century Egypt?," CEPR Discussion Papers 9363, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Joseph H. Davis & Christopher Hanes & Paul W. Rhode, 2009. "Harvests and Business Cycles in Nineteenth-Century America," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1675-1727.
    11. Alston Lee J. & Mueller Bernardo, 2018. "Priests, Conflicts and Property Rights: the Impacts on Tenancy and Land Use in Brazil," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-26, June.
    12. John A Tatom, 2022. "Is there a new case for reparations?," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(2), pages 395-408, June.
    13. Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo, 2014. "Slavery, education, and inequality," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 197-209.
    14. Depew, Briggs & Fishback, Price V. & Rhode, Paul W., 2013. "New deal or no deal in the Cotton South: The effect of the AAA on the agricultural labor structure," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 466-486.
    15. Thomas F. Cooley & Steven J. DeCanio, 1974. "Varying-Parameter Supply Functions and the Sources of Economic Distress in American Agriculture, 1866-1914," NBER Working Papers 0057, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Eli, Shari & Salisbury, Laura, 2016. "Patronage Politics and the Development of the Welfare State: Confederate Pensions in the American South," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 1078-1112, December.
    17. Vital Anderhub & Simon Gächter & Manfred Königstein, 2002. "Efficient Contracting and Fair Play in a Simple Principal-Agent Experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 5(1), pages 5-27, June.
    18. Oriana Bandiera, 1999. "On the Structure of Tenancy contracts: Theory and Evidence fron 19th Century Rural Sicily," STICERD - Development Economics Papers - From 2008 this series has been superseded by Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers 19, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    19. Ramona Frunza & Marian Stanciu, 2007. "The institutional change and it´s implications on economic development," Romanian Economic Business Review, Romanian-American University, vol. 2(1), pages 71-78, March.
    20. Canaday, Neil & Tamura, Robert, 2009. "White discrimination in provision of black education: Plantations and towns," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1490-1530, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:45:y:2008:i:2:p:199-206. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622830 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.