Urbanisation and the Onset of Modern Economic Growth

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Brunt, Liam; Garcia-Penalosa, Cecilia
• 署名单位: Norwegian School of Economics (NHH); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Aix-Marseille Universite
• 刊物名称: ECONOMIC JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0013-0133
• DOI: 10.1093/ej/ueab050
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 512-545
• 关键词: industrial-revolution; productivity growth; population; TECHNOLOGY; england; demand

摘要

A large literature characterises urbanisation as resulting from productivity growth attracting rural workers to cities. Incorporating economic geography elements into a growth model, we suggest that causation runs the other way: when rural workers move to cities, the resulting urbanisation produces technological change and productivity growth. Urban density leads to knowledge exchange and innovation, thus creating a positive feedback loop between city size and productivity that initiates sustained economic growth. This model is consistent with the fact that urbanisation rates in western Europe, most notably England, reached unprecedented levels by the mid-eighteenth century, the eve of the Industrial Revolution.