Editing Dust Bowl (section)

==Long-term economic impact==
In many regions, more than 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. [[Land degradation]] varied widely. Aside from the short-term economic consequences of erosion, the Dust Bowl had severe long-term economic consequences.

By 1940, counties that had experienced the most erosion had a greater decline in agricultural land values. The per-acre value of farmland declined by 28% in high-erosion counties and 17% in medium-erosion counties, relative to land value changes in low-erosion counties.<ref name="hornbeck">{{cite journal |last=Hornbeck |first=Richard |title=The Enduring Impact of the American Dust Bowl: Short and Long-run Adjustments to Environmental Catastrophe |journal=[[American Economic Review]] |year=2012 |volume=102 |issue=4 |pages=1477–1507 |doi=10.1257/aer.102.4.1477 |s2cid=6257886 |url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:11303325 |access-date=November 9, 2018 |archive-date=August 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210819065858/https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11303325 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{rp|3}} Even over the long term, the land's agricultural value often failed to return to pre-Dust Bowl levels. In highly eroded areas, less than 25% of the original agricultural losses were recovered. The economy adjusted predominantly through large relative population declines in more-eroded counties, both during the 1930s and through the 1950s.<ref name="hornbeck"/>{{rp|1500}}

The economic effects persisted in part because of farmers' failure to switch to more appropriate crops for highly eroded areas. Because the amount of topsoil had been reduced, it would have been more productive to shift from crops and wheat to animals and hay. During the Depression and through at least the 1950s, there was limited relative adjustment of farmland away from activities that became less productive in more-eroded counties.

Some of the failure to shift to more productive agricultural products may be related to ignorance about the benefits of changing land use. A second explanation is a lack of availability of credit, caused by the high rate of failure of banks in the Plains states. Because banks failed in the Dust Bowl region at a higher rate than elsewhere, farmers could not get the credit they needed to obtain capital to shift crop production.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Landon-Lane |first1=John |first2=Hugh |last2=Rockoff |first3=Richard |last3=Steckel |title=Droughts, Floods, and Financial Distress in the United States |journal=NBER Working Paper No. 15596 |page=6 |doi=10.3386/w15596 |date=December 2009 |doi-access=free}}</ref> In addition, profit margins in either animals or hay were still minimal, and farmers at first had little incentive to change their crops.

[[Patrick Allitt]] recounts how fellow historian [[Donald Worster]] responded to his return visit to the Dust Bowl in the mid-1970s when he revisited some of the worst afflicted counties:
:Capital-intensive [[agribusiness]] had transformed the scene; deep wells into the aquifer, intensive irrigation, the use of artificial pesticides and fertilizers, and giant harvesters were creating immense crops year after year whether it rained or not. According to the farmers he interviewed, technology had provided the perfect answer to old troubles, such of the bad days would not return. In Worster's view, by contrast, the scene demonstrated that America's capitalist high-tech farmers had learned nothing. They were continuing to work in an unsustainable way, devoting far cheaper subsidized energy to growing food than the energy could give back to its ultimate consumers.<ref>Patrick Allitt, ''A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism'' (2014) p 203</ref>

In contrast with Worster's pessimism, historian Mathew Bonnifield argued that the Dust Bowl's long-term significance was "the triumph of the human spirit in its capacity to endure and overcome hardships and reverses."<ref>Allitt p 211, paraphrasing William Cronin's evaluation of Mathew Paul Bonnifield, ''Dust Bowl: Men, Dirt and Depression''(1979)</ref>

A 2023 study in the ''Journal of Economic History'' found that while the Dust Bowl had large and enduring impacts on agricultural land, it had modest impacts on average wage incomes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hornbeck |first=Richard |date=2023 |title=Dust Bowl Migrants: Environmental Refugees and Economic Adaptation |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/dust-bowl-migrants-environmental-refugees-and-economic-adaptation/9876C760B117636890F8ED3C88840898 |journal=The Journal of Economic History |volume=83 |issue=3 |pages=645–675 |language=en |doi=10.1017/S0022050723000244 |s2cid=235678459 |issn=0022-0507}}</ref>