In many countries, regional income inequality has followed an inverted U-shaped curve, growing during industrialisation and market integration and declining thereafter. By contrast, Sweden's regional inequality dropped from 1860 to 1980 and did not show this U-shaped pattern. Accordingly,...

This paper uses city-level data to examine the impact of a first wave of railroad construction in Sweden, between 1855 and 1870, from the 19th century until today. We estimate that railroads accounted for 50% of urban growth, 1855-1870. In cities with access to the railroad network, property...

Though there is a very large literature examining whether energy use Granger causes economic output or vice versa this literature is fairly inconclusive. Almost all existing studies use relatively short time series or panels with a relatively small time dimension. Additionally, many recent...

This paper studies the impact of railroads on town-level growth in Sweden over 150 years. Our analysis builds on the fact that railroads historically were extended quasi-randomly across towns. Towns that gained access to a rail connection grew larger relative to other towns, with large negative...