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Find sources: "Johann Heinrich von Thünen" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (February 2010) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Johann Heinrich von Thünen Johann Heinrich von Thünen, age 57 Born (1783-06-24)24 June 1783 Canarienhausen in present day Wangerland, Friesland Died 22 September 1850(1850-09-22) (aged 67) Tellow in present day Rostock Nationality German Field Economic theory School or tradition Classical economics Alma mater University of Rostock Untersuchungen uber den Einfluss, den die Getrieidepreise, der Reichthum des Bodens und die Abgaben auf den Ackerbau ausuben, 1842 Johann Heinrich von Thünen (24 June 1783 – 22 September 1850), sometimes spelled Thuenen, was a prominent nineteenth century economist and a native of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in northern Germany.[1] Contents 1 Work 1.1 Thünen's model of agricultural land use 1.2 Natural wage 2 Bibliography 3 See also 4 References 5 External links Work[edit] Thünen's model of agricultural land use[edit] Thünen's model: the black dot represents a city; 1 (white) dairy and market gardening; 2 (green) forest for fuel; 3 (yellow) grains and field crops; 4 (red) ranching; the outer, dark green area represents wilderness where agriculture is not profitable 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 R = Y ( p − c ) − Y F m {\displaystyle R=Y(p-c)-YFm\,} 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 city is located centrally within an "Isolated State." The Isolated State is surrounded by wilderness. The land is completely flat and has no rivers or mountains. Soil quality and climate are consistent. Farmers in the Isolated State transport their own goods to market via oxcart, across land, directly to the central city. There are no roads. Farmers behave rationally to maximize profits. 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. In economics, Thünen rent is an economic rent created by spatial variation or location of a resource. It is 'that which can be earned above that which can be earned at the margin of production'. Natural wage[edit] In the second volume of his great work, The Isolated State, Thunen developed some of the mathematical foundations of marginal productivity theory and wrote about the Natural Wage indicated by the formula √AP, in which A equals the value of the product of labor and capital, and P equals the subsistence of the laborer and their family. The idea he presented is that a surplus will arise on the earlier units of an investment of either capital or labor, but as time goes on the diminishing return of newer investments will mean that if wages vary with the level of productivity those that are early will receive a greater reward for their labor and capital. But if wage rates were determined using his formula, thus giving labor a share that will vary as the square root of the joint product of the two factors, A and P. This formula was so important to him that it was a dying wish of his that it be placed on his tombstone. In The Isolated State he also coined the term Grenzkosten (marginal cost) which would later be popularized by Alfred Marshall in his Principles of Economics. Bibliography[edit] Henry Ludwell Moore (1895). Von Thünen's Theory of Natural Wages. G. H. Ellis. H. Schumacher-Zarchlin, ed. (1875). Der isolirte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirtschaft und Nationalökonomie. Wiegant, Hempel & Parey. Johann Heinrich von Thünen (1826). Der isolirte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirtschaft und Nationalökonomie. Wirtschaft & Finan. See also[edit] Ricardian rent Hotelling rent Alfred Weber References[edit] ^ He "ranks alongside Marx as the greatest German economist of the nineteenth century" (Fernand Braudel)[citation needed] External links[edit] "Thünen, Johann Heinrich von" . Encyclopedia Americana. 1920. "Johann Heinrich von Thünen". HET, at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Newspaper clippings about Johann Heinrich von Thünen in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW v t e Classical economists Francis Hutcheson Bernard Mandeville David Hume Adam Smith Jean-Baptiste Say Thomas Malthus James Mill Francis Place David Ricardo Henry Thornton John Ramsay McCulloch James Maitland, 8th Earl of Lauderdale Jeremy Bentham Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi Johann Heinrich von Thünen John Stuart Mill Nassau William Senior Edward Gibbon Wakefield Frédéric Bastiat Thomas Tooke Robert Torrens Authority control BNF: cb123936784 (data) GND: 118622366 ISNI: 0000 0001 1203 6754 LCCN: n85127362 NDL: 00476070 NKC: mzk2004231291 NLG: 211388 NLP: A26241122 NTA: 070660735 PLWABN: 9810638295705606 SUDOC: 067032567 Trove: 984943 VcBA: 495/203421 VIAF: 94496 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n85127362 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Johann_Heinrich_von_Thünen&oldid=951583349" Categories: 1783 births 1850 deaths People from Friesland (district) German economists Classical economists Economic geographers Regional scientists Regional economists German geographers University of Rostock alumni Hidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from July 2013 Articles needing additional references from February 2010 All articles needing additional references Articles with hCards Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the Encyclopedia Americana with a Wikisource reference Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLG identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLP identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Wikisource Languages العربية Azərbaycanca Català Čeština Deutsch Español Euskara فارسی Français 한국어 Հայերեն हिन्दी Bahasa Indonesia Italiano עברית مصرى Nederlands 日本語 Polski Português Русский Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska Українська Tiếng Việt 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 17 April 2020, at 21:19 (UTC). 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