Land Abundance, Interest/Profit Rates, and Nineteenth-Century American and British Technology

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Abstract
Virtually all sectors of the nineteenth-century American economy were less capital-intensive than their British counterparts. This resulted from persistently higher American interest/profit rates, due in turn to American land abundance. The paper adduces the evidence in support of these propositions, and explores their interrelationships through the use of a linear model inspired by the writings of David Ricardo.