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In the Shadow of the Mushroom Cloud: Nuclear Testing, Radioactive Fallout, and Damage to U.S. Agriculture, 1945 to 1970

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2019

Keith Meyers Open the ORCID record for Keith Meyers [Opens in a new window]
Keith Meyers*
Affiliation:
Keith Meyers is Assistant Professor, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmark and NBER Disability Research Center, 1050 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02138. E-mail: meyersk@sam.sdu.dk.
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Abstract

In the 1950s the United States conducted scores of atmospheric nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. This article studies the effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests on agriculture in regions hundreds of miles from the NTS. While research has shown that this radioactive material posed a health risk near the NTS, little is known about the direct economic effects nuclear testing may have had. I find that fallout from nuclear tests adversely affected U.S. agricultural production, and this result suggests that nuclear testing had a much broader economic and environmental impact than previously thought.

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 79 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 244 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2019 

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Footnotes

This article is derived from work done in the first chapter of my dissertation, which was completed at the University of Arizona. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number SES 1658749. Additional financial support was provided by the Economic History Association. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or Economic History Association. Thanks to Price Fishback, Ashley Langer, Derek Lemoine, Cihan Artunç, Jessamyn Schaller, Gary Solon, Noelwah Netusil, Richard Hornbeck, and Alex Hollingsworth for feedback, data, and support. Additional thanks to Andre Bouville, Steven Simon, and the National Cancer Institute for their help providing fallout deposition records.

References

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