Fast Track to Growth? The Impact of Railway Access on Regional Economic Development in 19th Century Switzerland

Stephan Kyburz Konstantin Buechel

Diskussionsschriften from Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft - CRED

Abstract: We study the effect of railway access on regional development in 19th century Switzerland. The identification strategy in our analysis of geo-referenced railway network information, population growth rates, sectoral work shares and body height, relies on panel data techniques and an inconsequential units IV approach. Gaining railway access increased annual population growth by 0.4 percentage points compared to unconnected municipalities, mainly via the local migration balance. Railway improvements also promoted structural shifts from the primary to the secondary/tertiary sectors, and marginally accelerated body height growth.

Keywords: Railway Access; Regional Development; Population Growth; Structural Change; Body Height; Switzerland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I30 N33 N73 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-gro, nep-his, nep-knm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://repec.vwiit.ch/cred/CREDResearchPaper12.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rdv:wpaper:credresearchpaper12

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Diskussionsschriften from Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft - CRED Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Franz Koelliker ().