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Declining Industries and the Persistence of Government Support Programs: The Quiet Decline of Gum Naval Stores Production in the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2012

Ronald N. Johnson
Ronald N. Johnson
Affiliation:
Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Montana State Universit Bozeman, MT 59717. E-mail: uaerj@montana.edu
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Abstract

Understanding industrial decline is important from both historical and policy perspectives. The United States was the world's leading producer of gum naval stores in the early twentieth centuiy, but by the late 1970s production had all but ceased. Evidence presented here indicates that changing relative prices induced forest owners, the key stakeholders, to shift production towards other forest products. Nevertheless, the federal government continued to provide transfers to this industry even as political support for it vanished. The demise of this once-great American industry lends support to the received notion that once instituted, transfer programs tend to persist.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , December 2000 , pp. 995 - 1016
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2000

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