Do locational fundamentals such as coastlines and rivers determine town locations, or can historical events trap towns in unfavorable locations for centuries? We examine the effects on town locations of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, which temporarily ended urbanization in Britain,...

We examine the geography of UK cotton textiles in 1838 to test claims about why the industry came to be so heavily concentrated in Lancashire. Our analysis considers both first and second nature geography including the availability of water power, humidity, coal prices, market access and sunk...

This paper explores the interactions between external trade and regional disparities in the Italian economy since unification. It argues that the advantage of the North was initially based on natural advantage (in particular the endowment of water, intensive in silk production). From 1880...

Geography is widely viewed as the important determinant of city location. This paper empirically disentangles the different roles of geography in shaping the European city system. We present a new database that covers all actual cities as well as potential city locations over the period when the...

Crowding-out during the British Industrial Revolution has long been one of the leading explanations for slow growth during the Industrial Revolution, but little empirical evidence exists to support it. We argue that examinations of interest rates are fundamentally misguided, and that the...

This paper takes a modest step towards formalizing the theoretical interconnections among four post-Industrial-Revolution phenomena – the industrialization and growth take-off of rich ‘northern’ nations, massive global income divergence, and rapid trade expansion. Specifically, we present...

This paper analyzes the decision of a group of specialized workers to form a guild and block the adoption of a new technology that does not require their specialized input. The theory predicts an inverted-U relation between guilds and market size: for small markets, firm profits are insufficient...

This paper provides a documentation of the ifo Prussian Economic History Database (iPEHD), a county-level database covering a rich collection of variables for 19th-century Prussia. The Royal Prussian Statistical Office collected these data in several censuses over the years 1816-1901, with much...

We examine the importance of geographical proximity to coal as a factor underpinning comparative European economic development during the Industrial Revolution. Our analysis exploits geographical variation in city and coalfield locations, alongside temporal variation in the availability of...