Early development of Italian railways and industrial growth: A regional analysis

Carlo Ciccarelli (), Cosimo Magazzino () and Edoardo Marcucci

Research in Transportation Economics, 2021, vol. 88, issue C

Abstract: The paper provides an empirical assessment of the relation between the early diffusion of railways and industrial growth in Italy's regions. On the one hand, history represents one of the main factors conditioning transport systems, and the analysis of the early evolution of railways might thus provide a better understanding of present infrastructures. On the other hand, Italy is characterized by considerable territorial heterogeneity, calling naturally for a regional disaggregated analysis. The analysis is based on a unique historical dataset with annual 1861–1913 data on regional railway endowment and manufacturing value added at 1911 prices. The empirical strategy is based on the Mean Group type estimators borrowed from the panel time series literature. Our results suggest that, when evaluated at the national level, the contribution of early railway developments on industrial growth was relatively modest, albeit increasing over time. The effect was instead sizeable, both in terms of direct and spillover effects, for northern regions.

Keywords: Industrial growth; Railway; Regions; Italy; 19th century (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L92 N13 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0739885920301141
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:retrec:v:88:y:2021:i:c:s0739885920301141

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_2&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2020.100916

Access Statistics for this article

Research in Transportation Economics is currently edited by M. Dresner

More articles in Research in Transportation Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().