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Agricultural Production and Output per Worker in Hungary, 1870–1913

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Scott M. Eddie
Scott M. Eddie
Affiliation:
Williams College and Yale University
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Extract

The countries of non-Russian “Communist Eastern Europe” present the economic historian with a fascinating field for study. This opportunity has, judging from English-language journals at least, largely gone unexploited. Moreover, although Eastern Europe remained a predominantly agrarian region up to the most recent times, the existing literature concentrates heavily on finance, trade, and industry. It is in the hope of contributing to the discussion of Eastern European economic history, most particularly some of its agricultural aspects, that this article has been written.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1968 , pp. 197 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1968

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References

1 Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Appellation borrowed from Spulber, Nicolas, The Economics of Communist Eastern Europe (New York: MIT Press and John Wiley & Sons, 1957)Google Scholar.

2 For example, a check of tides in the issues of the last ten years shows only three articles dealing with problems of economic history in one or more countries of this area in the JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY and only two in the Economic History Review (through August 1967).

8 Ránki, György, “Problems of the Development of Hungarian Industry, 1900–1944,” Journal of Economic History, XXIV (Sept. 1964), 204–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 ibid., p. 210.

6 The Kingdom of Hungary, with 20.9 million inhabitants, stood seventh among the nations of Europe in population in 1910, behind Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Austria (in that order). Bowden, W., Karpovich, M., and Usher, A. P., An Economic History of Europe Since 1750 (New York: American Book Co., 1937), p. 21.Google Scholar

6 For more details see my “The Changing Pattern of Landownership in Hungary, 1867–1914,” Economic History Review, XX (Aug. 1967), 292–303Google Scholar.

7 See for example Drage, Geoffrey, Austria-Hungary (London: J. Murray, 1909)Google Scholar; Matlekovits, Alexander von, Das Königreich Vngarn (2 vols.; Leipzig: Duncker and Humblot, 1900)Google Scholar; or Jászi, Oscar, The Dissolution of the Habsburg Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1929)Google Scholar, esp. ch. xv. Ránki (p. 205) hints that there may have been some progress in agriculture, but Macartney is the only historian to my knowledge who points out that in fact between 1870 and 1890 Hungarian agricultural output “nearly doubled.” Macartney, C. A., Hungary: A Short History (Chicago: Aldine, 1962), p. 181Google Scholar.

8 Official figures put the extent of producing vineyards in the Kingdom of Hungary at 435.7 thousand hectares in 1885, but by 1895 this had been reduced to 245.4 thousand due to phylloxera. Von Matlekovits calculates that 43.7 percent of Hungary's vineyards were totally destroyed by this disease, which was first noticed in significant extent in 1875. Matlekovits, Von, Das Königreich, I, xvi, 278Google Scholar. Because data for CroatiaSlavonia are not available until 1885, data which follow are for “Hungary proper" only (i.e., the Kingdom of Hungary ex Croatia-Slavonia) unless otherwise stated.

9 Average for the period as a whole. A slight decline occurred, so that the share in 1913 was 77 percent.

10 Ungarische Statistische Mitteilungen, N.F. (Neue Folge) Vol. XV (Budapest: 1898), pp. 12°-24°. The source of the troubles seems to have been lack of adequate financing of the statistical bureau. Work could not begin on a large scale in that office until after its appropriation was sharply increased in 1878. Bokor, Gustav, Geschichte und Organisation der amtlichen Statistik in Ungarn (Budapest: 1896), pp. 69–88Google Scholar.

11 , Bokor, Geschichte, p. 200Google Scholar.

12 Ungarische Statistische Mitteilungen, N.S. (Neue Serie) Vol. XLIV (Budapest: Magyar Királyi Központi Statisztikai Hivatal [Royal Hungarian Central Statistical Office], 1913), and Annuaire Statistique Hongroise, various issues.

13 This is taken as 1870/74 average to 1909/13 average, or a span of 39 years from the midpoints of the beginning and ending periods.

14 In the indexes of output which follow, the average prices of 1909/13 are used as weights, with the average quantity level of 1909/13 (using these weights) formingthe base of 100 for the index. Mathematically, the index is as follows: Let P i be priceof ith crop in jth year, and Ql be quantity harvested of ith crop in the jth year.

The number n varies as the number of crops included is varied. The value of the index for the year k then becomes

15 Cautes (no first name given), Die Lage der ungarischen Landwirtschaft (Budapest: 1895), p. 2.

16 István Király, “A Szarvasmarhatenyésztés Alakulása Somogy Megyében 1848–1944” [The conditions of cattle husbandry in the county of Somogy, 1848–1944], Agrártörttneti Szemle [Agrarian History Review], V (1963), 184.

17 Dymond, T. S., “Hungarian Agriculture,” Journal of the Farmers' Club (London), February 1903, p. 4Google Scholar.

18 A discussion of the difficulties of the early censuses may be found in Bokor, Ceschichte, p. 203–04.

10 Fellner, Friedrich von, “Die Schätzung des Volkseinkommens,” Bulletin de l'lnstitut International de Statistique XIV (1905), 109–151Google Scholar; “Das Volkseinkommen Oesterreichs und Ungarns,” Statistische Monatschrift XXI (1916), 485–625Google Scholar.

20 From 2.52 million to 3.10 million hectares. Figures taken from Ungarische Statistische Mitteilungen, N. F. Vol. VI, p. 24°; and from Annuaire Statistique Hongroise, 1914, p. 85, respectively.

21 Fellner, “Schätzung,” and Fellner, “Volkseinkommen,” respectively. Arpad Hensch, perhaps the most eminent Hungarian agricultural expert in the nineteenth century, thought that the share of animal products in total output exceeded one-half around 1848 (see his chapter, “Agriculture,” in The Millennium of Hungary and its People, edited by Joseph de Jekelfalussy [Budapest, 1897], esp. p. 446). This share declined as grain farming expanded in response to the freeing of the serfs and later the expansion of the market as the Hungarian railroad network was constructed. For a fuller account see Eddie, “Changing Pattern,” p. 306.

22 The apparent constancy in numbers of pigs after 1895 in fact represents recovery from a severe epidemic of hog cholera, which killed over 1⅓ million pigs in the years from 1896 to 1898 (von Matlekovits, Das Königreich, I, 362–63).

23 This is the only period for which reliable foreign trade data are available. The rate was calculated from figures in Ungarische Statistische Mitteilungen, N. S. Vol. LXIII, pp. 64–66.

24 Albert Kiss, “Allatenyesztésünk Belterjességének Alakuldsa az Elmult Száz Evben (1857–1957)” [The circumstances of the intensification of our animal husbandry in the past 100 years (1857–1957)] Statisztikai Szemle [Statistical Review] 1958, p. 17.

25 Vngarische Statistische Mitteilungen, N. F. Vol. XV, p. 210°.

26 A Magyar Királyi Kormány 1913. Evi Mükód4sérol és az Ország Közállapotairól Szóló Jelentés és Statisztikai Evkönyo [Report and statistical yearbook concerning the activities of the Royal Hungarian Government and general state of affairs of the country for the year 1913] (Budapest: Athenaeum, 1915), p. 97.

27 Kiss, p., 17.

28 Forestry and fishing, a very small fraction of the total, could not b e separated out. Data taken from Thirring, Lajos, “Magyarország Népessége 1869–1949 Között” [Hungary's population between 1869 and 1949], in Magyarország Történeti Demográfiája [Historical demography of Hungary], edited by József Kovacsics (Budapest: Közgazdasági és Jogi Könyvkiadó, 1963), pp. 318–19.Google Scholar Thirring's figures refer to the Kingdom of Hungary (with Croatia-Slavonia). The 1869 census includes under “house-hold servants and persons of miscellaneous or unknown occupation” 1.2 million persons, more than 16 percent of the “economically active” population. Thirring assigns 450,000 of these to agriculture, as he does 650,000 of the 950,000 “day laborers with-out further designation” who made up 13 percent of the “economically active” in 1880. Thus augmented, the agricultural labor force forms 75 percent and 71 percent, respectively, of the total labor force in the census years 1869 and 1880. From this basis, Thirring puts, the “lower bound” to the proportion of agricultural to total population in 1869 at 75 to 76 percent, and at 74 percent in 1880. Such an adjustment of the census figures is, in my opinion, necessary. For confirmation, see also , Bokor, Geschichte, pp. 173–76Google Scholar; Offergeld, Wilhelm, Grundlagen und Ursachen der industriellen Entwicklung Ungarns (“Probleme der Weltwirtschaft: Schriften des Instituts fur Seeverkehr und Weltwirtschaft an der Universität Kiel,” no. 17; Jena: G. Fischer, 1914), p. 199Google Scholar; or Kolossa, T., “Beiträge zur Verteilung und Zusammensetzung des Agrarproletariats in der Österreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie (1900),” in Studien zur Geschichte der Oesierreichisch-Ungarischen Monarchie, edited by Sándor, V. and Hanák, P. (“Studia Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae,” no. 51; Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1961), p. 241Google Scholar.

29 Calculated from figures appearing in Ungarische Statistische Mitteilungen, N. S. Vol. XLVIII, p. 28°.Google Scholar The figure for Hungary excluding Croatia-Slavonia is 62.4 percent.

30 Provided that the time interval is relatively short or that population growth is not so slow, or advances in medicine or social legislation so rapid, as to increase significantly the share of elderly persons on pensions in the population.

31 Of all the economically active males above the age of 15, 68.4 percent had agriculture as their chief occupation in 1900, as against 62.9 percent in 1910. For the economy as a whole, there were according to the censuses (all succeeding figures refer to 1890, 1900, and 1910, respectively) 125, 118, and 133 dependent persons per 100 economically active, whereas in agriculture the numbers were 133, 118, and 140. This corresponds to participation rates for all males of 63.4, 64.3, and 64.9 percent, and for all females of 25.9, 27.6, and 21.3 percent (see Thirring, “Magyarorszag,” pp. 316–17). It appears that the variability in female participation rates is a result of the changing interpretations of “active” used in the various censuses, rather than of any large change in economic activity. Alexander Eckstein finds that

one of the most difficult problems in an analysis of Hungarian occupational statistics is to determine the exact size of the active population … In Hungary, as in many other European countries, there is a definite tendency towards under-enumeration of this active population, because farm wives and other members of the farm family, who devote only part of their time to the farm enterprise, are usually not counted. … It is in the unpaid farm family personnel category that most of the under-enumeration is concentrated. The census questionnaires provided no objectively measurable criterion that would definitely establish whether a farm family member should be assigned to the ranks of the passive or active population, and the decision rests upon the judgment of the individual question or of the census-taker. This accounts for unduly wide intercensal fluctuations in the numbers of active population; at least this variation cannot be explained either on demographic or economic grounds.

See “National Income and Capital Formation in Hungary,” in Kuznets, Simon, ed., International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, Income and Wealth Series V. (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1955) p. 179.Google Scholar Even with pronounced swings of the business cycle, such a large deviation from trend (four or five percentage points) would be most unusual. Indeed, “the only thing which seems to have a large impact on participation rates is mobilization for a major war.” Reynolds, Lloyd G., Labor Economics and Labor Relations (4th ed.; Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p. 328Google Scholar, wherein he provides as an example of a “large impact” a change of 4.6 percentage points from a constant trend.

32 Which may be closer to the “true” level. Eckstein, in “National Income” (p. 182), adjusts the total of “economically active in agriculture” for “under-enumeration” in 1910. Presumably he would then have done the same for 1890, had his study included that year.

33 Available evidence appears to corroborate this conclusion for Hungary: Thirring in “Magyarország” (p. 315), has calculated participation rates for 1900 and 1910 in the areas that make up present-day Hungary, finding 43.4 percent and 42.5 percent, respectively. These compare to 47.0, 46.0, and 48.3 percent for 1920, 1930, and 1941, years when emigration was small. This can be only a rough comparison, however, because of the unknown magnitude of errors in the data and because of the sharply changed economic conditions which prevailed after World War I.

34 The abnormally slow growth of population between the 1869 and 1880 censuses was the result mainly of a serious cholera epidemic in the 1870's. See von Matlekovits, Das Königreich, I, 81.

35 The distribution of these gains, especially as reflected by changes in agricultural real wages, will be the subject of a major portion of a forthcoming paper.

36 No five-year average could be computed for 1869. A figure using the 1870/74 average would have been misleading, given the generally poor harvests of those years.

37 A rough indicator of relative scarcities would be the density of population per unit of area. Ordering the eleven countries shown in Table 5 according to this measure, we find the coefficient of rank correlation with wheat, rye, barley, oats, and potato yields to be 0.50, 0.80, 0.59,0.76, and 0.64, respectively. Virtually no difference can be detected (since only Hungary and Romania switch places) if the density measure used is that of population per square kilometer of “productive” area.

38 Goldsmith, Raymond W., “The Economic Growth of Tsarist Russia,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, IX (04 1961), 444Google Scholar.

39 Gallman, Robert A., “Commodity Output, 1839–1899,” in National Bureau of Economic Research, Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, Trends in the American Economy in the 19th Century, “Studies in Income and Wealth,” Vol. 24; (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1960), pp. 24, 31.Google Scholar In a later work, Gallman revises his output figures slightly downward, but the resulting adjustment has virtually no effect on the calculated rates of growth. See his “Gross National Product in the United States, 1834–1909,” in NBER Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States After 1800, “Studies in Income and Wealth,” Vol. 30 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966), p. 56Google Scholar.

40 David, Paul A., “The Growth of Real Product in the United States Before 1840: New Evidence, Controlled Conjectures,” Journal of Economic History, XXVII (June 1967), p. 177.Google Scholar

41 Deane, Phyllis and Cole, W. A., British Economic Growth 1688–1959: Trends and Structure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), pp. 78, 170–72Google Scholar.

42 Hoffman, Walther, Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte des 19 Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1965), p. 37Google Scholar.

43 Kazushi Ohkawa and Bruce F. Johnston, “The Transferability of the Japanese Pattern of Modernizing Traditional Agriculture,” Table 1. Paper forthcoming in volume of proceedings of NBER Conference on the Role of Agriculture in Economic Development, held at Princeton, N.J., Dec. 1–2, 1967. Quoted by permission.

44 See Eddie, “Changing Pattern.”

45 The higher elasticity is of course an assumption, so far as Hungary is concerned, but the weight of evidence from other countries is solidly behind the use of such an assumption.

46 It might also represent a substitution of animal products for grapes on the small farms after the phylloxera epidemic began. In my opinion, such a substitution was unlikely.

47 A rather pointed piece of evidence in this regard comes from a consideration of Hungarian experience in international trade. Because of the customs union with Austria, Hungary could make no independent tariff policy. Under the impact of the overseas competitors who invaded the European grain market in the late nineteenth century, the politically powerful group in Hungary (dominated by estate owners) shifted from advocacy of free trade to a strong protectionist position. Thus we find the tariffs around the Austrian Empire rising for both manufactures and grains, following agreements among the representatives of the two halves of the Monarchy. The response of Hungarian magnates to competition seems to have been to exercise their political strength to reserve a market for their traditional produce, rather than to change drastically the kinds of products they produced or the production methods they employed. A fuller discussion of this point is contained in Eddie, Scott M., “The Role of Agriculture in the Economic Development of Hungary, 1867–1913” (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1967), ch. ivGoogle Scholar.