 Institutional Commitment and Economic Revival: Evidence From Palace-Building in Renaissance RomeAlyssa Rusonik ()
No 1554, HEC Research Papers Series from HEC Paris Abstract: I study the recovery of the Roman economy following the papacy's sojourn in France (1309-1377). I show that a reform of inheritance laws in 1480 gave rise to an era of palace-building resulting in the construction of over 35% of palaces built in Roman history. Using a novel dataset that links information on investment projects and patrons, I provide evidence that the reform, which allowed prelates to bequeath their possessions, caused a significant increase of prelate palace-building relative to their lay counterparts (who were not directly affected by the reform). Initial prelate investment then guaranteed that the papacy would remain in Rome long-term, which eventually incentivized laymen to invest-though the return of the papacy to Rome itself had failed to induce investment. Increased confidence in Rome's future also manifested in more ambitious projects, across all patrons. I disentangle the effect of commitment to long-term presence from the effects of contemporaneous papal presence in Rome to show that the irreversibility of institutional change is a necessary condition for successful intervention. Keywords: investment (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebg:heccah:1554 DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.5168235 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in HEC Research Papers Series from HEC Paris HEC Paris, 1 Rue de la Libération, 78350 Jouy-en-Josas, France. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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