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The Effects of Industrialization on Farm Income Distribution and Farm Numbers in New England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

A. Somwaru
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268
T. C. Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268
S. K. Seaver
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06268
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Abstract

Affected by industrialization, agriculture in New England adapts to economic changes. Farms have become either large commercial units or small part time farms. Distributions of farm income have changed from an inverted-J distribution to a U-shaped distribution in the past three decades. Farm income grows slower and shows a larger dispersion in urban counties than in rural counties. Analyses of census data support the hypotheses (1) that farm income is lognormally distributed and (2) that industrialization has a complementary effect on agriculture while growth of urbanization essentially reduces farm numbers mostly in middle income classes.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

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Footnotes

Scientific Contribution No. 888. Connecticut (Storrs) Agricultural Experiment Station.

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