Our focus in this paper is on a somewhat curious feature of evolutionary economic geography, namely that although concerned with evolution - with processes of historical change and transformation - evolutionary economic geography seems not to take history as seriously as it would be expected to...

We identify negative spillovers exerted by large, successful manufacturing plants on other local production facilities in China. A short-lived alliance between the U.S.S.R. and China led to the construction of 150 "Million-Rouble plants" in the 1950s. Our identification strategy exploits the...