EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

             EHS Abstract Submission
                    (c) 1996 EH.Net
-----------------------------------------------------------
              Name:  Craig Heinicke
               Email:  cheinick at baldwinw.edu
         Institution:  Baldwin Wallace College  

         Co-author:  None
 
             Title:  The Federal Soil Bank, the Decline of Cotton,
                        and the Demise of the Southern Plantation in the 1950s  

  Internet Address
of abstracted work:  Not available on the Internet  

           By mail:  
                     Department of Economics
                     Baldwin-Wallace College
                     275 Eastland Road
                     Berea OH 44017 USA  

          Language:  English
 
          Abstract:
   After World War II, the Old South virtually disappeared as a
separate economic region in the United States. This paper
examines the fall of "King Cotton" after 1945, which had
far-reaching consequences for labor markets and migration. Three
possible causes of the decline of cotton in the Southeast are
examined: government programs that reduced acreage; increased
labor costs; and relative output price movements.  Using South
Carolina as an example, it is found that the state's absolute and
share of U.S. cotton acreage both exhibited downward trends, with
the share decreasing more after World War II than before.
Regressing the stationary series on a linear trend reveals that
government cotton allotments and the Soil Bank program did not
reduce the South Carolina share of U.S. cotton acreage; they did,
however, reduce the absolute acreage. What factors did lead to
the Southeast's decline in the share of U.S. cotton acreage?
Increased labor costs brought on by World War II outmigration
from the South caused substitution into less labor-intensive
products. Relative product price movements also contributed to
the shift. Unlike labor costs, however, the latter were partially
reversed from 1950 to 1960. This is demonstrated using
counterfactual labor prices from 1940 and 1960, given production
conditions for cotton and livestock in 1950. The most important
factor was probably the increased cost of labor in the 1940s
which, unlike the period following World War I, was not
subsequently reversed.

 
      Bibliography:  Craig Heinicke,  "The Federal Soil Bank, the
                         Decline of Cotton, and the Demise of the
Southern
                         Plantation in the 1950s."  Paper
prepared for the
                         ASSA Meeting/Cliometric Society
Sessions, New 
                         Orleans, January 1997.
 
                     Subject:  A
    Geographical Area:  7
         Country/Region:  US South
              Time Period:  9