To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2007.06.002 Byline: Lee A. Craig (a), Matthew T. Holt (b) Keywords: C22; E32; N50; Q13 Abstract: This paper examines the role of mechanical refrigeration in seasonality and structural change in the U.S. hog-corn cycle, 1870-1940. This period covers an era in which the widespread adoption of mechanical refrigeration greatly affected the ability to store and transport perishable commodities. These developments in turn altered the seasonal production and price structure for many commodities, including pork. We use a new class of time series models, time-varying smooth transition autoregressions (TV-STARs), to document both the structural change and the nonlinear features observed in seasonal patterns for the U.S. hog-corn price relationship during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Economics, Box 8110, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-8110, USA (b) Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, 403 W. State Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2056, USA Article History: Received 25 September 2006 Article Note: (footnote) [star] For helpful comments on earlier drafts, the authors thank the editor, two anonymous referees, and seminar participants at the University of Kansas, Purdue University, the Stockholm School of Economics, Ball State University, Eastern Carolina University, the Triangle Universities' Economic History Workshop, and the Washington, DC-area Universities' Economic History Workshop.