This paper contributes to the debate on the impact of agricultural productivity on long run economic development. It presents evidence that widespread adoption of clover contributed to local economic development based on a panel of 56 Danish market towns. We adopt a differences-in-differences approach augmented by an instrumental variable and find that the adoption of clover accounts for about 8 percent of the growth in market town population from 1672 to 1901. The analysis suggests that the effect of the adoption of clover on the process of development was mediated by its impact on human capital formation.

中文翻译：

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农业生产力与经济发展：三叶草对丹麦结构转型的贡献

本文有助于就农业生产力对长期经济发展的影响进行辩论。它提供的证据表明，基于56个丹麦集镇的一个小组，三叶草的广泛采用为当地的经济发展做出了贡献。我们采用以工具变量为基础的差异差异方法，发现三叶草的采用约占从1672年到1901年市场集镇人口增长的8％。分析表明，三叶草的采用对发展过程是通过其对人力资本形成的影响来介导的。