Thünen, Johann Heinrich Von

Thünen, Johann Heinrich von

(born June 24, 1783, Jever, Oldenburg—died Sept. 22, 1850, Tellow, Mecklenburg) German economist and agriculturalist. After carrying out research on his own estate into the relationship between the costs of commodity transportation and the location of production, he set forth his theories in The Isolated State (1826). He used an imaginary city, isolated in the middle of a fertile plain, to create a model of concentric zones of agricultural production. Heavy products and perishables would be produced close to the town, lighter and durable goods on the periphery; returns on the land would diminish as transport costs to the city increased. Thünen's model influenced many later writers on the subject.

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Thünen, Johann Heinrich Von 

Born June 24, 1783, in Kanarienhausen, near the city of Jever; died Sept. 22, 1850, in Tellow, Mecklenburg. German agriculturalist.

Thünen investigated the influence of the situation factor, that is, distance from the market, on the profitability and organization of agriculture, as well as on differential rent, prices, and wages. He held that the most profitable agricultural organization is one where the degree of intensiveness corresponds to proximity to the market. A studied ignorance of the changes occurring in production predetermined the weakness of his theoretical position. Although Thünen contributed nothing new to the bourgeois theory of rent, his research is interesting for its analysis of differential rent. Thünen thought it possible to reconcile the interests of labor and capital, and he propounded an oversimplified theory according to which wages would be determined by marginal labor productivity.

WORKS

Der isolierte Staat in Beziehung auf Landwirtschaft und Nationalökonomie, 3rd ed., vols. 1–3. Berlin, 1875.