Early railways and industrial development: Local evidence from Sardinia in 1871–1911
Ugo Gragnolati (),
Luigi Moretti and
Roberto Ricciuti
Rivista di storia economica, 2023, issue 3, 331-368
Abstract:
During the second half of the 19th century, railroads developed worldwide and were regarded as carriers of modernity that could expand market potential and favor the transition from an agricultural economy toward an industrial one. Did railways actually have medium-run effects on the industrial sector? We bring new evidence by looking at the case of Sardinia. According to our estimates, those municipalities that received a railway station during the 19th century displayed higher industrial employment by 1911, specifically in subsectors such as foodstuff and metal processing. These effects stem primarily from locations having direct access to the primary railway lines with standard gauge rails. The present results are robust to a large set of control variables and district fixed effects, as well as to the use of an instrumental variable based on least-cost paths. Other sectors, such as minerals and construction, textiles, chemicals and extractive are not at the core of our analyses as, in 1911, they were present only in less than twenty percent of Sardinian municipalities.
Keywords: Early railways; industrial development; developing economy; insular economy; least cost paths. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://www.rivisteweb.it/download/article/10.1410/108524 (application/pdf)
https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1410/108524 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
Related works:
Working Paper: Early railways and industrial development: Local evidence from Sardinia in 1871–1911 (2023) 
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:mul:jrkmxm:doi:10.1410/108524:y:2023:i:3:p:331-368
Access Statistics for this article
Rivista di storia economica is currently edited by P.L. Ciocca, G. Federico, G. Toniolo (resp.)
More articles in Rivista di storia economica from Società editrice il Mulino
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().