Do universities generate spatial spillovers? : Evidence from US counties between 1930 and 2010

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

How market size drove the localisation of knowledge hubs in the US

Knowledge hubs are generally located in large and dynamic population clusters, but there is little empirical evidence on what has driven the location of services in the economy, particularly the knowledge-intensive ones that form these hubs. This column describes how the geography of services across the US has been influenced by the interaction between county and industry characteristics. The presence of large markets enhanced the agglomeration of services mainly through linkages with other services and manufacturing firms

Urban planning and town foundations

Urban growth is crucial for modernisation, and the wave of new towns in China since the 1980s is one example of a strategy employed by policymakers to encourage the process. This column analyses the long-run success of a town foundation policy in Sweden between 1570 and 1810. While the ‘artificially’ created towns failed to grow in the short term, they eventually began to grow and thrive, and today are as resilient as their medieval counterparts

Can Kings Create Towns that Thrive? : The long-run implications of new town foundations

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

Household Behaviour under rationing

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

Stunting and wasting in a growing economy : biological living standards in Portugal,1924-1994

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

Railroads and Reform: How Trains Strengthened the Nation State

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

Stunting and wasting in a growing economy: biological living standards in Portugal during the twentieth century

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 living standards. We use a new sample of about 3,400 infants and children living in Lisbon to document trends in the prevalence of stunting and wasting between 1906 and 1994. We find that stunting and wasting fell quickly from around 1950, for both males and females. We additionally use a sample of more than 26,000 young adult males covering the entire country, which shows a consistent decrease in 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. Sustained progress began well before the introduction of democracy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Household Behaviour in Ireland, Sweden, the US and the UK under Rationing

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