Johann Heinrich von Thünen
| Johann Heinrich von Thünen | |
|---|---|
Johann Heinrich von Thünen
|
|
| Born |
24 June 1783 Canarienhausen in present day Wangerland, Friesland |
| Died | 22 September 1850 (aged 67) Tellow in present day |
| Nationality | German |
| Field | Economic theory |
| School or tradition |
Classical economics |
| Alma mater | |
| Influenced | Joseph Schumpeter |
Johann Heinrich von Thünen (24 June 1783 – 22 September 1850), sometimes spelt Thuenen, was a prominent nineteenth century economist and a native of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in northern Germany.
Thünen was a Mecklenburg landowner, who in the first volume of his treatise The Isolated State (1826) developed the first serious treatment of spatial economics and economic geography, connecting it with the theory of rent. The importance lies less in the pattern of land use predicted than in its analytical approach.
Thünen developed the basics of the theory of marginal productivity in a mathematically rigorous way, summarizing it in the formula in which
where R = land rent; Y = yield per unit of land; c = production expenses per unit of commodity; p=market price per unit of commodity; F = freight rate (per agricultural unit, per mile); m=distance to market.
Thünen's model of agricultural land, created before industrialization, made the following simplifying assumptions:
The use which a piece of land is put to is a function of the cost of transport to market and the land rent a farmer can afford to pay (determined by yield, which is held constant here).
The model generated four concentric rings of agricultural activity. Dairying and intensive farming lies closest to the city. Since vegetables, fruit, milk and other dairy products must get to market quickly, they would be produced close to the city.
Timber and firewood would be produced for fuel and building materials in the second ring. Wood was a very important fuel for heating and cooking and is very heavy and difficult to transport so it is located close to the city.
The third zone consists of extensive fields crops such as grain. Since grains last longer than dairy products and are much lighter than fuel, reducing transport costs, they can be located further from the city.
Ranching is located in the final ring. Animals can be raised far from the city because they are self-transporting. Animals can walk to the central city for sale or for butchering.
Beyond the fourth ring lies the wilderness, which is too great a distance from the central city for any type of agricultural product.
Thünen's rings proved especially useful to economic history, such as Fernand Braudel's Civilization and Capitalism, untangling the economic history of Europe and European colonialism before the Industrial Revolution blurred the patterns on the ground.
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Wikipedia