The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification

Stephen Redding and Daniel Sturm

No 5015, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper exploits the division of Germany after the Second World War and the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 as a natural experiment to provide evidence of the importance of market access for economic development. In line with a standard new economic geography model, we find that following division cities in West Germany that were close to the new border between East and West Germany experienced a substantial decline in population growth relative to other West German cities. We provide several pieces of evidence that the decline of the border cities can be entirely accounted for by their loss in market access and is neither driven by differences in industrial structure nor differences in the degree of war related destruction. Finally, we also find some first evidence of a recovery of the border cities after the reunification of East and West Germany.

Keywords: Market access; Economic geography; German division; German reunification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F15 N94 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP5015 (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:
Journal Article: The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification (2008)
Working Paper: The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification (2006)
Working Paper: The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification (2005)
Working Paper: The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification (2005)
Working Paper: The costs of remoteness: evidence from German division and reunification (2005)
Working Paper: The costs of remoteness: evidence from German division and reunification (2005)
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:5015

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP5015

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 ().