Transport Costs and the Geography of Arbitrage in Eighteenth-Century China

Carol Shiue ()

American Economic Review, 2002, vol. 92, issue 5, 1406-1419

Abstract: Trade has been considered a condition for growth and development, a view that might have merits in explaining the rise of the Western world. I use a new data set from archival sources of eighteenth-century China to revisit this question. This analysis suggests previous studies of market integration, which attribute much growth to a reduction in transport costs, have overestimated these effects. I find the overall level of market integration in China was higher than previously thought, and, intertemporal effects are important substitutes for trade. Both factors reduce the importance of trade as a unique explanation for subsequent growth.

Date: 2002
Note: DOI: 10.1257/000282802762024566
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (61)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/000282802762024566 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

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:aea:aecrev:v:92:y:2002:i:5:p:1406-1419

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().