Political Institutions, Economic Liberty, and the Great Divergence

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Stanford University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050717000729
• 发表日期: 2017
• 页码: 724-755
• 关键词: EUROPE; PERSPECTIVE

摘要

I argue that Europe's political fragmentation interacted with her political innovations-self-governing cities and national parliaments-to facilitate economic liberty, which in turn unleashed faster and more inter-connected urban growth. Examining urban growth over the period 600-1800 CE throughout Eurasia, I show that inter-city growth correlations were positive and significant only in Western Europe after 1200 CE. Within Western Europe, I show that growth correlations were greatest in the most fragmented and parliamentary areas, individual cities became significantly more tied to urban growth when their realms became parliamentary, and spillover effects (due to competition between rulers) were significant.