The Wind of Change: Maritime Technology, Trade and Economic Development

Luigi Pascali

No 270234, Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics

Abstract: The 1870-1913 period marked the birth of the Örst era of trade globalization. How did this tremendous increase in trade a§ect economic development? This work isolates a causality channel by exploiting the fact that the steamship produced an asymmetric change in trade distances among countries. Before the invention of the steamship, trade routes depended on wind patterns. The introduction of the steamship in the shipping industry reduced shipping costs and time in a disproportionate manner across countries and trade routes. Using this source of variation and a completely novel set of data on shipping times, trade, and development that spans the great majority of the world between 1850 and 1900, I Önd that 1) the adoption of the steamship was the major reason for the Örst wave of trade globalization, 2) only a small number of countries that were characterized by more inclusive institutions beneÖted from globalization, and 3) globalization exerted a negative effect on both urbanization rates and economic development in most other countries.

Keywords: Financial; Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46
Date: 2014-06-25
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/270234/files/twerp_1049_pascali.pdf (application/pdf)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/270234/files/t ... i.pdf?subformat=pdfa (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Wind of Change: Maritime Technology, Trade, and Economic Development (2017)
Working Paper: The Wind of Change: Maritime Technology, Trade and Economic Development (2014)
Working Paper: The Wind of Change: Maritime Technology, Trade and Economic Development (2014)
Working Paper: The wind of change: Maritime technology, trade and economic development (2014)
Working Paper: The Wind of Change: Maritime Technology, Trade and Economic Development (2014)
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:ags:uwarer:270234

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.270234

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().