Assessing Market Integration in the Early Modern Period
Empirical tests of market integration are tests of price differences across locations with only tenuous reference to economic theory. We develop a simple model that illustrates the links between price convergence and the gains from trade, providing a theoretical rationale for empirical analysis. We then introduce three panel econometric approaches to assess linear or non-linear price convergence that account for the general equilibrium effects of common shocks and apply them to monthly grain price data for 209 prefectures of Qing China during 1740-1820. Our findings of secular decline of market integration in North and South China as well as in (economically advanced) sub-regions from the 1760s onwards solve an apparent puzzle in the literature over the state and evolution of market integration in the decades leading up to the First Opium War in 1839
Year of publication: |
[2022]
|
---|---|
Authors: | Bernhofen, Daniel M. ; Eberhardt, Markus ; Li, Jianan ; Morgan, Stephen L. |
Publisher: |
[S.l.] : SSRN |
Saved in:
freely available
Saved in favorites
Similar items by person
-
Assessing market (dis)integration in early modern China and Europe
Bernhofen, Daniel M., (2016)
-
Assessing market (dis)integration in early modern China and Europe
Bernhofen, Daniel M., (2015)
-
Assessing Market (Dis)Integration in Early Modern China and Europe
Bernhofen, Daniel M., (2015)
- More ...