Flora, Cosmos, Salvatio: Pre-modern Academic Institutions and the Spread of Ideas

David de la Croix, Rossana Scebba and Chiara Zanardello
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David de la Croix: UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)
Rossana Scebba: UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)
Chiara Zanardello: Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST). Toulouse School of Economics, Universite Toulouse Capitole

No 2026008, LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES from Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES)

Abstract: While good ideas can emerge anywhere, it takes a community to develop and disseminate them. In premodern Europe (1084-1793), there were approximately 200 universities and 150 academies of sciences, home to thousands of scholars from the Middle Ages to the First Industrial Revolution. By inferring co-presence from institutional affiliations, we simulate how ideas would spread from a scholar to another across the European academic network. We find that the implied exposure patterns align with observed urban developments: examples include botanic gardens, astronomical observatories, and Protestantism. Scholars’ mobility and multiple affiliations sustain the diffusion, and counterfactual simulations underscore the bridging role played by scientific academies. We also show that the spread of ideas through the affiliation network was locally fragile but globally robust, pointing towards academia as being a connective infrastructure underlying early European development.

Keywords: Temporal Network; Structural Estimation; Scientific Revolution; European Academia; Epidemiological model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 N33 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-03-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his, nep-net and nep-sog
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ctl:louvir:2026008

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