Premium
THE U.S. WESTWARD EXPANSION *
Author(s) -
Vandenbroucke Guillaume
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
international economic review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.658
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 1468-2354
pISSN - 0020-6598
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2354.2008.00474.x
Subject(s) - investment (military) , economic geography , population , population growth , economics , geography , movement (music) , natural resource economics , political science , demography , sociology , philosophy , politics , law , aesthetics
The U.S. economic development in the 19th century was characterized by the westward movement of population and the accumulation of productive land in the West. This article presents a model of migration and land improvement to identify the quantitatively important forces driving these phenomena. The conclusion is that the decrease in transportation costs induced the westward migration, whereas population growth was responsible for the investment in productive land.