New NBER working paper today
Firewood in the
American Economy: 1700 to 2010.
Nicholas Z. Muller
Despite the central role of firewood in the development of
the early American economy, prices for this energy fuel are absent from
official government statistics and the scholarly literature. This paper
presents the most comprehensive dataset of firewood prices in the United States
compiled to date, encompassing over 6,000 price quotes from 1700 to 2010.
Between 1700 and 2010, real firewood prices increased by between 0.2% and 0.4%,
annually, and from 1800 to the Civil War, real prices increased especially rapidly,
between 0.7% and 1% per year. Rising firewood prices and falling coal prices
led to the transition to coal as the primary energy fuel. Between 1860 and
1890, the income elasticity for firewood switched from 0.5 to -0.5. Beginning
in the last decade of the 18th century, firewood output increased from about
18% of GDP to just under 30% of GDP in the 1830s. The value of firewood fell to
less than 5% of GDP by the 1880s. Prior estimates of firewood output in the
19th century significantly underestimated its value. Finally, incorporating the
new estimates of firewood output into agricultural production leads to higher
estimates of agricultural productivity growth prior to 1860 than previously
reported in the literature.
And if you haven’t already read it take a look at
Ron, Ariel. "When hay was king: Energy history and
economic nationalism in the nineteenth-century United States." The
American Historical Review 128, no. 1 (2023): 177-213.
