IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/empeco/v63y2022i3d10.1007_s00181-021-02180-7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the growth process of US agricultural land

Author

Listed:
  • Sherzod B. Akhundjanov

    (Utah State University)

  • Tatiana Drugova

    (Utah State University)

Abstract

In this article, we show that the growth process of US county-level farmland is remarkably consistent with the Gibrat’s law of proportionate effect, an empirical regularity frequently observed across various disciplines. This implies farmland grows proportionately over time (farmlands, whether large or small, on average grow at similar rates) and that there is little empirical support for the presence of diseconomies of size for US farmland. Granted that a random multiplicative growth is the prevalent attribute of models explaining the genesis of power laws, confirmation of Gibrat’s law also offers a possible explanation for the emergence of a power law in the distribution of US county-level farmland size.

Suggested Citation

  • Sherzod B. Akhundjanov & Tatiana Drugova, 2022. "On the growth process of US agricultural land," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 1727-1740, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:63:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s00181-021-02180-7
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-021-02180-7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s00181-021-02180-7
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00181-021-02180-7?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Tasso Adamopoulos & Diego Restuccia, 2014. "The Size Distribution of Farms and International Productivity Differences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(6), pages 1667-1697, June.
    2. J. Stephen Clark & Murray Fulton & Derrick J. Brown, 1992. "Gibrat's Law and Farm Growth in Canada," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 40(1), pages 55-70, March.
    3. Brenes Muñoz, Thelma & Lakner, Sebastian & Brümmer, Bernhard, 2012. "Economic growth of farms: An empirical analysis on organic farming," 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil 126756, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Akhundjanov, Sherzod B. & Devadoss, Stephen & Luckstead, Jeff, 2017. "Size distribution of national CO2 emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 182-193.
    5. Chesher, Andrew, 1979. "Testing the Law of Proportionate Effect," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 403-411, June.
    6. Mary Clare Ahearn & Jet Yee & Penni Korb, 2005. "Effects of Differing Farm Policies on Farm Structure and Dynamics," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 87(5), pages 1182-1189.
    7. Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Power Laws in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 255-294, May.
    8. Erich Battistin & Richard Blundell & Arthur Lewbel, 2009. "Why Is Consumption More Log Normal than Income? Gibrat's Law Revisited," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 117(6), pages 1140-1154, December.
    9. Daniel Shapiro & Ray D. Bollman & Philip Ehrensaft, 1987. "Farm Size and Growth in Canada," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 69(2), pages 477-483.
    10. Almuhanad Melhim & Erik J. O’Donoghue & C. Richard Shumway, 2009. "Do the Largest Firms Grow and Diversify the Fastest? The Case of U.S. Dairies," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 31(2), pages 284-302.
    11. Sherzod B. Akhundjanov & Lauren Chamberlain, 2019. "The power-law distribution of agricultural land size," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(16), pages 3044-3056, December.
    12. Upton, Martin & Haworth, Simon, 1987. "The Growth of Farms," European Review of Agricultural Economics, Oxford University Press and the European Agricultural and Applied Economics Publications Foundation, vol. 14(4), pages 351-366.
    13. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    14. Christoph R. Weiss, 1999. "Farm Growth and Survival: Econometric Evidence for Individual Farms in Upper Austria," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(1), pages 103-116.
    15. Andrew T. Balthrop, 2021. "Gibrat’s law in the trucking industry," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 339-354, July.
    16. MacDonald, James M. & Korb, Penni & Hoppe, Robert A., 2013. "Farm Size and the Organization of U.S. Crop Farming," Economic Research Report 262221, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    17. Anton Bekkerman & Eric J. Belasco & Vincent H. Smith, 2019. "Does Farm Size Matter? Distribution of Crop Insurance Subsidies and Government Program Payments across U.S. Farms," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(3), pages 498-518, September.
    18. Erzo G. J. Luttmer, 2007. "Selection, Growth, and the Size Distribution of Firms," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(3), pages 1103-1144.
    19. MacDonald, James M. & Hoppe, Robert A. & Newton, Doris, 2018. "Three Decades of Consolidation in U.S. Agriculture," Economic Information Bulletin 276247, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    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. Drugova, Tatiana & Akhundjanov, Sherzod B., 2020. "Growth Process of US Agricultural Land Size: Testing the Law of Proportionate Effect," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304250, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. Behzod B. Ahundjanov & Sherzod B. Akhundjanov & Botir B. Okhunjanov, 2022. "Power law in COVID‐19 cases in China," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(2), pages 699-719, April.
    3. Heath Henderson & Leonardo Corral & Eric Simning & Paul Winters, 2015. "Land Accumulation Dynamics in Developing Country Agriculture," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(6), pages 743-761, June.
    4. Faustino Prieto & Catalina B. Garc'ia-Garc'ia & Rom'an Salmer'on G'omez, 2024. "Modelling Global Fossil CO2 Emissions with a Lognormal Distribution: A Climate Policy Tool," Papers 2403.00653, arXiv.org.
    5. Kostov, Philip & Patton, Myles & Moss, Joan E. & McErlean, Seamus, 2005. "Does Gibrat's Law Hold Amongst Dairy Farmers in Northern Ireland?," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24775, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Kimhi, Ayal & Tzur, Nitzan, 2011. "Long-Run Trends in the Farm Size Distribution in Israel: The Role of Part-Time Farming," Discussion Papers 99217, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
    7. Heath Henderson & Leonardo Corral & Eric Simning & Paul Winters, 2015. "Land Accumulation Dynamics in Developing Country Agriculture," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(6), pages 743-761, June.
    8. Ayal Kimhi & Nitzan Tzur-Ilan, 2021. "Structural Changes in Israeli Family Farms: Long-Run Trends in the Farm Size Distribution and the Role of Part-Time Farming," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-15, June.
    9. Akhundjanov, Sherzod B. & Devadoss, Stephen & Luckstead, Jeff, 2017. "Size distribution of national CO2 emissions," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 182-193.
    10. Zimmermann, Andrea & Heckelei, Thomas, 2012. "Differences of farm structural change across European regions," Discussion Papers 162879, University of Bonn, Institute for Food and Resource Economics.
    11. Landi, Chiara & Stefani, Gianluca & Rocchi, Benedetto & Lombardi, Ginevra V. & Giampaolo, Sabina, 2013. "Determinants of Structural Change in the agricultural sector: An Empirical Analysis of Farm Exit in Tuscany," 2013 Second Congress, June 6-7, 2013, Parma, Italy 149893, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA).
    12. Marie-Luce Ghib & Pierre Wavresky & Krystyna Larkham & Lucian Luca, 2010. "Les petites exploitations roumaines connaissent elles une évolution sous contraintes de localisation?," INRA UMR CESAER Working Papers 2010/4, INRA UMR CESAER, Centre d'’Economie et Sociologie appliquées à l'’Agriculture et aux Espaces Ruraux.
    13. Yuval Dolev & Ayal Kimhi, 2010. "Do family farms really converge to a uniform size? The role of unobserved farm efficiency ," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 54(1), pages 119-136, January.
    14. Dolev, Yuval & Kimhi, Ayal, 2008. "Does Farm Size Really Converge? The Role of Unobserved Farm Efficiency," Discussion Papers 45778, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
    15. Chiara Landi & Gianluca Stefani & Benedetto Rocchi & Ginevra Virginia Lombardi & Sabina Giampaolo, 2016. "Regional Differentiation and Farm Exit: A Hierarchical Model for Tuscany," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(1), pages 208-230, February.
    16. Sherzod B. Akhundjanov & Alexis Akira Toda, 2020. "Is Gibrat’s “Economic Inequality” lognormal?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(5), pages 2071-2091, November.
    17. Paul Allanson & Kalina Kasprzyk & Andrew P. Barnes, 2017. "Income Mobility and Income Inequality in Scottish Agriculture," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(2), pages 471-493, June.
    18. Robert Petrunia, 2008. "Does Gibrat’s Law Hold? Evidence from Canadian Retail and Manufacturing Firms," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 30(2), pages 201-214, February.
    19. Villatoro, Mario & Langemeier, Michael, 2006. "Factors Impacting Farm Growth," Journal of the ASFMRA, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, vol. 2006, pages 1-7.
    20. Fertő, Imre & Bakucs, Lajos Zoltán, 2008. "Érvényes-e a Gibrat-törvény a magyar mezőgazdaságban? [Is Gibrat s law valid for Hungarian agriculture?]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(1), pages 25-38.

    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:spr:empeco:v:63:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s00181-021-02180-7. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.