Concentration and Specialization in United States Agriculture, 1939–1978

Abstract

It has been hypothesized that reduced transportation costs will result in increasing concentration and regional specialization in agriculture. Yet, modern agricultural innovation would appear to reduce comparative advantage of agricultural production throughout a nation. Using United States farm sales data for 19 agricultural commodities gathered between 1939 and 1978, it was ascertained through use of the location quotient and index of dissimilarity that the farm sales of the majority of commodities had become both more concentrated and regionally specialized. Furthermore, the distribution of farm sales of most commodities has grown less similar to that of the nation's population during the same period.