Distribution of Farm Productivity Gains

[Brad De Long]

>On Thu, 30 Sep 1999 michael at ecst.csuchico.edu wrote:
>
> > Brad, productivity does not just translate into cheap food.  Processors
> > and suppliers also capture quite a bit of the productivity gains.
>
>According to Levin and Lewontin ('The Dialectical Biologist', 1985), on
>the US situation:
>
>"The consumer has not benefited. The average price of food has risen more
>rapidly than the average of all prices. The ratio of food prices in 1970
>to that in 1930 was 2.48; the ratio for all purchased goods and services
>was 2.33. So food has become not cheaper but relatively more expensive,
>even though farm productivity has risen more rapidly."

Farm productivity has risen more rapidly than what? It hasn't risen 
more rapidly than productivity in making microprocessors. It has 
risen more rapidly than productivity in giving haircuts.

And the consumer has too benefited. Anyone who believes that a given 
quantity of food doesn't require a lower share of the disposable 
income of the average American consumer today than it required in 
1930 is truly far off in outer space.

I hope for Lewontin's sake that his biology is better than his economics...

Brad DeLong