The Development of Cities in Italy 1300-1861

Steven Brakman, Herman de Jong (h.j.de.jong@rug.nl), Maarten Bosker, Harry Garretsen and Marc Schramm
Additional contact information
Steven Brakman: University of Groningen
Herman de Jong: University of Groningen
Harry Garretsen: Utrecht University
Marc Schramm: Utrecht University

No 7012, Working Papers from Economic History Society

Abstract: "The evolution of city growth is usually studied for relatively short time periods. The rise and decline of cities is, however, a process that takes many decades or even centuries. In this paper we study the evolution of Italian cities over the period 1300-1861. The first contribution of our paper is that we use various descriptive statistics on individual city size and the city-size distribution as a whole to highlight the main characteristics of Italy’s urban system such as the differences between northern and southern Italy. Our second and main contribution is that our data allow for panel estimation where city-size is regressed on various geographical, political, and other determinants of city size for the period 1300-1861. We show that, although large shocks such as the plague epidemics are clearly visible in the data, the main determinants of Italy’s city growth invariably are physical geography and political predominance. Also the North-South difference turns out to be important."

JEL-codes: O18 R12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-04
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ehs.org.uk/dotAsset/491c2f80-6f0e-42c2-becb-228b23ef47b7.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.ehs.org.uk/dotAsset/491c2f80-6f0e-42c2-becb-228b23ef47b7.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://ehs.org.uk/dotAsset/491c2f80-6f0e-42c2-becb-228b23ef47b7.pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Development of Cities in Italy 1300 – 1861 (2007)
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:ehs:wpaper:7012

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Economic History Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chair Public Engagement Committe (currently David Higgins - Newcastle) (david.higgins@newcastle.ac.uk).