加拿大铁路 One of the main objectives of the Dominion government of Canada after Confederation was to open up the west, to increase the resource and tax bases, and deter American expansionism. The government employed several instruments to accomplish this objective, the most important of which were the Dominion Lands Policy and the organizationo f a transcontinentarl ailway.B y 1883 both were in place, but large-scale settlement still did not begin until about 1900. This slow start frustrated national political ambitions and compromised the profitability of the Canadian Pacific Railway (the CPR) during its critical early years. The reasons for the failure have presented a persistent puzzle in Canadian economic history. Several writers have identified important factors that contributed to the delay. Farmers had to learn how to cope with the inadequate rainfall with dry-farming techniques. Access to markets was initially poor, owing to insufficient railway branch lines and high railway freight charges. Lewis (1981) formalized the analysis of the extensive margin of settlement in the framework of an 'economically feasible region of cultivation.' This paper explores the hypothesis that in addition to the extensive margin modelled by Lewis, there was also an 'intensive margin' of cultivation on each farm, that interacted with and influenced the location of the extensive margin.I n the 1880s the short agriculturals eason, scarce labour, and a lack of appropriate equipment restricted the area of land that farmers could cultivate, resulting in small farms and low revenues. By 1900 labour-augmentingm echanical equipment had been developed, and the ripening time for crops had fallen. Farmers could then plough, sow, and harvest greater areas of crops in the limited time available. Increased prices and the innovation of excursion trains to bring migrant harvest hands from eastern Canada further enhanced farm profitability, and the combination of these factors expanded the intensive margin, making farming more attractive and pushing the extensive margin outwards
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发表于 2009-12-4 21:16:04
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