3,422 works, 150 years of economic thought. Each one summarized and searchable, with cited passages inside.
Should a farmer invest in new buildings and machinery, or spend more on feed, fuel, repairs, and supplies? Gerhard Tintner and O. H. Brownlee bring this practical allocation problem to production-function analysis using 1939 records from 468 Iowa farms. Their estimates suggest that these farms were, on average, over-improved: additional operating expenditure and productive assets promised greater marginal returns than further improvements. The interest lies as much in how they reach that judgement as in the recommendation itself. Translating accounts into inputs exposes unmeasured differences in land and labor and, crucially, the absence of any satisfactory measure of management. Readers can see how elasticities become investment comparisons—and why findings from unusually prosperous farms in a single year cannot become general rules for Iowa agriculture.