ABSTRACT
According to Ricardo, the agricultural distress was caused mainly by the overproduction of corn through the expansion of cultivation of inferior land under the protection of the 1815 Corn Law but not by the 1819 Act providing for a return to cash payment or Britain's heavy taxes on domestic growers compared to the taxes in other countries. The main cause of low agricultural productivity in the Continent was the lack of turnip cultivation. Jacob's analysis was symmetrical with Ricardo's capital accumulation theory. In Ricardo's theory, free trade in corn produces contrasting results: in the corn-importing country, by decreasing the cultivation of inferior land, the imported corn would reduce the corn price, which would lower wages and increase the profits rate; in the corn-exporting country, the increase of corn exports by expanded cultivation of inferior land would increase the corn price, which would increase wages and decrease the profits rate.
