No wheat crisis: trade liberalization and transportation innovation in Quebec during the 1830s and 1840s

Abstract

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the wheat oriented agrarian economy of Lower Canada saw a rapid collapse in wheat production. These developments have been blamed on factors ranging from soil exhaustion to cultural conservatism and used to infer falling living standards in the colony. We provide evidence suggesting this collapse was largely the result of adjustment to the trade shock that followed the Colonial Trade Act of 1831 and a rapid reduction in freight costs between the Canadian colonies. Areas more exposed to external markets—as proxied by road access—shifted away from wheat production.