| 1. |
- Enflo, Kerstin, et al.
(författare)
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Can Kings Create Towns that Thrive? The long-term implications of new town foundations
- 2019
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Ingår i: Journal of Urban Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 1095-9068 .- 0094-1190. ; 112, s. 50-69
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We examine the long-term effects of a series of Swedish towns founded by the Crown during the early modern period. Their advantage over rural parishes consisted in having monopoly rights to trade with the local hinterland. Since the optimum sites were occupied by medieval towns, the Crown could only aim for second-rate locations. Using difference-in-difference combined with Propensity Score Matching, we find that a reduction in the distance to town increased gross production and population up to 30-40 km away. However, there is no evidence of increasing per capita production or yields. These natural constraints could only support a sluggish growth in the towns themselves. However, after the Industrial Revolution, the towns began to thrive. We argue that town status signalled the commitment of the Crown to nurture these locations creating positive expectations despite their natural constraints. During industrialization, agglomeration economies led them to become significantly large urban areas persistent until today.
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| 2. |
- Fitzgerald, John, et al.
(författare)
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Household Behaviour under rationing
- 2023
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Ingår i: National Institute Economic Review. - : Cambridge University Press (CUP). - 0027-9501 .- 1741-3036. ; 263, s. 6-26
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The pandemic-induced economic crisis has seen a massive increase in savings as households could not spend their income. The last time that consumers were seriously rationed was during the Second World War. This article models the behaviour of households during the War years and its immediate aftermath in Ireland, Sweden, the US and UK. Savings were held in liquid form and, once the War was over and rationing eased, a consumption boom transpired. However, significant excess savings were converted into physical assets in the housing market. There is evidence that this pattern is being repeated as the Covid-19 crisis eases.
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| 3. |
- L. Cermeño, Alexandra, et al.
(författare)
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All roads lead to market integration : lessons from a spatial analysis of the wheat market in 18th century Spain
- 2020
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper uses newly collected data from a large-scale census (Catastro de la Ensenada) to investigate the scale and causes of market integration in eighteenth century Spain. We use wheat prices observed in more than 5,200 municipalities to analyse the local spatial dependence of prices. We detect several regional clusters in the centre and coasts but find that these were not integrated with each other. We then investigate the first nature, second nature, and demand side determinants of these clusters and find that although geographical constrains like terrain roughness play a negatively significant role, the transportation network allowed connected municipalities to alleviate such obstacles. Our results suggest that unfavourable geographical conditions can be overcome by investments in transportation infrastructures.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- L. Cermeño, Alexandra, et al.
(författare)
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Can Kings Create Towns that Thrive? : The long-run implications of new town foundations
- 2018
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Town foundations have been at the core of urban planning since the onset of civilization. This paper describes the long-run impact of an urbanization place-based policy that was considered a failure by contemporary policymakers. We test the impact of founded towns using a series of town foundations that took place between 1570 and 1810, when the Swedish Crown conferred monopoly market rights to trade upon 31 previously rural ordinary parishes. We show that towns were founded in locations with little natural potential, evident in their limited impact on agricultural surplus in the surrounding hinterlands. However, the new foundations drove extensive growth in terms of population and created positive spillover effects up to 40-50 km around the settlements. Still, the founded towns remained extraordinarily small by the end of the policy period. It was not until the Industrial Revolution that these towns began to thrive. We suggest that trading rights and sunk investments initially served to coordinate expectations about future growth. Once the towns started to grow, agglomeration effects generated persistence in the long term.
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| 6. |
- L. Cermeño, Alexandra
(författare)
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Do universities generate spatial spillovers? : Evidence from US counties between 1930 and 2010
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal of Economic Geography. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1468-2710 .- 1468-2702. ; 19:6, s. 1173-1210
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores the impact of new universities established in the USA between 1931 and 1980 on population density, GDP and market size measured from 1930 to 2010. The analysis is based on differences in differences on counties selected through propensity score matching, as well as an instrumental variable approach. The evidence suggests that counties hosting a university for the first time grew by between 1% and 3% annually on top of the general trends of population density and GDP growth, and that this effect expanded to neighboring counties. Controlling for research intensity and interstate road infrastructure shows that the potential gains from these new universities were severely constrained by the ease of access, which eventually resulted in higher congestion costs. These results point to a situation where new universities create spillover effects that eventually fade away if not accompanied by additional investments.
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| 7. |
- L. Cermeño, Alexandra, et al.
(författare)
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Household Behaviour in Ireland, Sweden, the US and the UK under Rationing
- 2021
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The pandemic-induced economic crisis has seen a massive build up in savings across Europe and North America as households could not spend their income as they normally would. The last time that consumers were seriously rationed was during the Second World War. This paper models the behaviour of households during the War years and its immediate aftermath in Ireland, Sweden, the US and the UK. We first estimate overall consumption and then consider how total consumption was allocated over different categories of goods, including rationed goods. The model shows that consumers saved rather than spend on available unrationed goods and services. These savings were held in liquid form and, once the War was over and rationing eased, a consumption boom transpired. However, only some of the savings were spent on previously rationed goods as significant excess savings were also converted into physical assets in the housing market. There is evidence that this pattern is being repeated as the Covid-19 crisis eases.
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| 8. |
- L. Cermeño, Alexandra, et al.
(författare)
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Railroads and Reform: How Trains Strengthened the Nation State
- 2022
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Ingår i: British Journal of Political Science. - 0007-1234. ; 52, s. 715-735
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper examines the relationship between the coming of the railroads, the expansion of primary education, and the introduction of national school curricula. Using fine-grained data on local education outcomes in Sweden in the nineteenth century, the paper tests the idea that the development of the railroad network enabled national school inspectors to monitor remote schools more effectively. In localities to which school inspectors could travel by rail, a larger share of children attended permanent public schools and took classes in nation-building subjects such as geography and history. By contrast, the parochial interests of local and religious authorities continued to dominate in remote areas school inspectors could not reach by train. The paper argues for a causal interpretation of these findings, which are robust for the share of children in permanent schools and suggestive for the content of the curriculum. The paper therefore concludes that the railroad, the defining innovation of the First Industrial Revolution, mattered directly for the state's ability to implement public policies.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- L. Cermeño, Alexandra, et al.
(författare)
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Stunting and wasting in a growing economy : biological living standards in Portugal,1924-1994
- 2021
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Portugal's real income per head grew by a factor of eight during the second half of the twentieth century, a period of fast convergence towards Western European standards of living. We use a new sample of about 2,000 children to document trends in the prevalence of stunting and wasting in the city of Lisbon between 1945 and 1994. We find that stunting and wasting fell quickly in the 1950s and 1960s. This happened for males and females, and for infants (0 to 36 months of age) as well as children (2 to 10 years of age). We additionally use a sample of 17,000 young adult males covering the entire country which shows a similar decrease in the incidence of wasting and stunting, with the expected time lag. We discuss these trends in relation to changes in income and public policy which affected the ontogenetic environment of children.
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