State Capacity and Public Goods: Institutional Change, Human Capital, and Growth in Historic Germany

Jeremiah Dittmar and Ralf R Meisenzahl

No 12037, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: What are the origins and consequences of the state as a provider of public goods? We study institutional changes that increased state capacity and public goods provision in German cities during the 1500s. Cities that adopted institutional change subsequently began to differentially produce and attract human capital and grow faster. Institutional change occurred where ideological competition introduced by the Protestant Reformation interacted with local politics. We study plagues that shifted local politics in a narrow period as sources of exogenous variation in institutions, and find support for a causal interpretation of the relationship between institutional change, human capital, and growth.

Keywords: State capacity; Institutions; Political economy; Public goods; Education; Human capital; Growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 N13 O11 O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP12037 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

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:cpr:ceprdp:12037

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP12037
orders@cepr.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (repec@cepr.org).