Showing 1 - 10 of 19
How much of the spatial distribution of economic activity today is determined by history rather than by geographic fundamentals? And if history matters for the distribution, does it also affect overall efficiency? This paper develops a tractable theoretical and empirical framework that aims to...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012482278
Several recent studies have examined the tendency of regions within a nation to exhibit long-term convergence in per … capita income levels. Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1991, 1992, 1995) have found a tendency towards convergence among the U … convergence among the provinces of China during the period 1952-1993. We find that real income convergence of provinces in China …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012473452
We examine the golden age of U.S. innovation by undertaking a major data collection exercise linking historical U.S. patents to state and county-level aggregates and matching inventors to Federal Censuses between 1880 and 1940. We identify a causal relationship between patented inventions and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012455633
convergence within and across countries. Regional growth is shaped by similar factors as national growth, such as geography and … human capital. Regional convergence is about 2.5% per year, not more than 1% per year faster than convergence between … countries. Regional convergence is faster in richer countries, and countries with better capital markets. A calibration of a …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10012459724
We develop a dynamic spatial growth model to explore the role of trade and internal migration in the process of spatial development and aggregate growth. Growth is shaped by the best global and local ideas that contribute to the local stock of knowledge. Global ideas diffuse more to locations...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013435141
Between 1880 and 1920, the US agricultural employment share fell from 50% to 25%. However, despite aggregate demand shifting away from their sector of specialization, rural labor markets saw faster wage growth and industrialization than non-agricultural parts of the US. We propose a spatial...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013388845
We study the joint process of urbanization and industrialization in the US economy between 1880 and 1940. We show that only a small share of aggregate industrialization is accounted for by the relocation of workers from remote rural areas to industrial hubs like Chicago or New York City....
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013537768
A unilateral carbon tax trades off the distortionary costs of taxation and the future gains from slowing down global warming. Because the cost is local and immediate, whereas the benefit is global and delayed, this tradeoff tends to be unfavorable to unilateral carbon taxes. We show that this...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013462726
We study three centuries of U.K. fiscal history. Before WW-I, when the U.K. dominated global bond markets, the U.K.'s government debt was not always fully backed by its future surpluses, even after accounting for the seigniorage revenue from convenience yields. As predicted by theories of safe...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10013210087
An impulse response is the dynamic average effect of an intervention across horizons. We use the well-known Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to explore a response's heterogeneity over time and over states of the economy. This can be implemented with a simple extension to the usual local...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10014226168