Military conflict and the economic rise of urban Europe

Mark Dincecco () and Massimiliano Onorato ()
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Mark Dincecco: University of Michigan
Massimiliano Onorato: IMT Lucca

No 14006, Working Papers from Economic History Society

Abstract: "We present new city-level evidence about the military origins of Europe’s economic “backbone,” the prosperous urban belt that runs from the Low Countries to northern Italy. Military conflict was a defining feature of pre-industrial Europe. The destructive effects of warfare were worse in the countryside, leading rural inhabitants under the threat of con- flict to relocate behind urban fortifications. Conflict-related city population growth in turn had long-run economic consequences. Using GIS software, we construct a novel conflict exposure measure that computes city distances from 231 major conflicts from 1300 to 1799. We find a significant, positive, and robust relationship between conflict exposure and his- torical city population growth. Next, we use luminosity data to construct a novel measure of current city-level economic activity. We show evidence that the economic legacy of historical conflict exposure endures to the present day."

Keywords: "conflict; city populations; historical legacy; economic development; GIS" (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C20 N40 N90 O10 P48 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-04
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