Medieval Universities, Legal Institutions, and the Commercial Revolution

Davide Cantoni and Noam Yuchtman

Munich Reprints in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: We present new data documenting medieval Europe's Commercial Revolution using information on the establishment of markets in Germany. We use these data to test whether medieval universities played a causal role in expanding economic activity, examining the foundation of Germany's first universities after 1386 following the papal schism. We find that the trend rate of market establishment breaks upward in 1386 and this break is greatest where the distance to a university shrank most. There is no differential pre-1386 trend associated with the reduction in distance to a university, and there is no break in trend in 1386 where university proximity did not change. These results are robust to estimating a variety of specifications that address concerns about the endogeneity of university location. Universities provided training in newly rediscovered Roman and canon law; students with legal training served in positions that reduced the uncertainty of trade in the Middle Ages. We argue that training in the law, and the consequent development of legal and administrative institutions, was an important channel linking universities and greater economic activity in medieval Germany.

Keywords: I25; N13; N33; O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 N13 N33 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (118)

Published in QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS 2 129(2014): pp. 823-887

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Journal Article: Medieval Universities, Legal Institutions, and the Commercial Revolution (2014)
Working Paper: Medieval universities, legal institutions, and the commercial revolution (2014)
Working Paper: Medieval Universities, Legal Institutions, and the Commercial Revolution (2013)
Working Paper: Medieval Universities, Legal Institutions, and the Commercial Revolution (2013)
Working Paper: Medieval Universities, Legal Institutions, and the Commercial Revolution (2012)
Working Paper: Medieval Universities, Legal Institutions, and the Commercial Revolution (2012)
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:lmu:muenar:21915

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Munich Reprints in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics Ludwigstr. 28, 80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tamilla Benkelberg ().