IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/italej/v7y2021i1d10.1007_s40797-020-00120-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

When History Leaves a Mark: A New Measure of Roman Roads

Author

Listed:
  • Vania Licio

    (University of Verona and CRENoS)

Abstract

This paper introduces a new measure of Roman roads that has been constructed for the Italian territory. The measure computes the length in kilometers of Roman roads at different administrative and territorial levels (NUTS, Local Labor Systems, grid cells), and contributes to the literature on historical infrastructures, providing a new precise measure to use for empirical purposes and easy to extend in all those territories where Roman roads have been constructed. From a mere econometric point of view, the index allows to capture the intensity of the treatment, providing an alternative empirical strategy for all those cases where the simple binary treatment cannot be performed.

Suggested Citation

  • Vania Licio, 2021. "When History Leaves a Mark: A New Measure of Roman Roads," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 7(1), pages 1-35, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:italej:v:7:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s40797-020-00120-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s40797-020-00120-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40797-020-00120-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s40797-020-00120-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2016. "Long-Term Persistence," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(6), pages 1401-1436, December.
    2. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Kaarsen, Nicolai & Olsson, Ola & Selaya, Pablo, 2018. "Roman Roads to Prosperity: Persistence and Non-Persistence of Public Goods Provision," CEPR Discussion Papers 12745, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2018. "Spatial Patterns of Development: A Meso Approach," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 383-410, August.
    4. La Porta, Rafael & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1131-1150, July.
    5. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    6. Bosker, Maarten & Buringh, Eltjo, 2017. "City seeds: Geography and the origins of the European city system," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 139-157.
    7. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    8. L. De Benedictis & V. Licio & Am Pinna, 2018. "The long-term effects of the historical Roman road network: trade costs of Italian provinces," Working Paper CRENoS 201801, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    9. Stanley L. Engerman & Kenneth Lee Sokoloff, 2002. "Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development Among New World Economies," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2002), pages 41-110, August.
    10. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    11. Greif, Avner, 1994. "Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 912-950, October.
    12. Fabian Wahl, 2017. "Does European development have Roman roots? Evidence from the German Limes," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 22(3), pages 313-349, September.
    13. Guy Michaels & Ferdinand Rauch, 2018. "Resetting the Urban Network: 117–2012," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(608), pages 378-412, February.
    14. Greif, Avner, 1993. "Contract Enforceability and Economic Institutions in Early Trade: the Maghribi Traders' Coalition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 525-548, June.
    15. Maarten Bosker & Eltjo Buringh & Jan Luiten van Zanden, 2013. "From Baghdad to London: Unraveling Urban Development in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, 800–1800," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(4), pages 1418-1437, October.
    16. Eltjo Buringh & Jan Luiten van Zanden & Maarten Bosker, 2012. "Soldiers and booze: The rise and decline of a Roman market economy in north-western Europe," Working Papers 0032, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    17. Rodney Ramcharan, 2009. "Why an economic core: domestic transport costs," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(4), pages 559-581, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marta Santagata, 2022. "Roads and intra‐national trade: Evidence from Italian regions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(6), pages 1383-1409, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. V. Licio, 2019. "When history leaves a mark: a new measure of Roman roads," Working Paper CRENoS 201904, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    2. Nunn, Nathan, 2014. "Historical Development," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 7, pages 347-402, Elsevier.
    3. Alvaro Aguirre, 2017. "Contracting Institutions and Economic Growth," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 192-217, March.
    4. Abdoul’ Mijiyawa, 2013. "Determinants of property rights institutions: survey of literature and new evidence," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 127-183, May.
    5. Djankov, Simeon & Glaeser, Edward & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2003. "The new comparative economics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 595-619, December.
    6. Fuchs-Schündeln, N. & Hassan, T.A., 2016. "Natural Experiments in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 923-1012, Elsevier.
    7. Beck, T.H.L., 2010. "Legal Institutions and Economic Development," Other publications TiSEM 8aa07b48-ce55-4cf6-8754-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Andrea Asoni, 2008. "Protection Of Property Rights And Growth As Political Equilibria," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 953-987, December.
    9. Hasan LUBNA, 2011. "Rule Of Law Legal Development And Economic Growth Perspectives For Pakistan," Journal of Advanced Research in Law and Economics, ASERS Publishing, vol. 2(1), pages 48-59.
    10. Kim, Yong Jin, 2004. "Factors affecting colonial industrialization in the endowment view of settlement versus extraction," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 55-80, January.
    11. Randall Morck & Michael Percy & Gloria Tian & Bernard Yeung, 2005. "The Rise and Fall of the Widely Held Firm: A History of Corporate Ownership in Canada," NBER Chapters, in: A History of Corporate Governance around the World: Family Business Groups to Professional Managers, pages 65-148, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo, 2014. "Under the Thumb of History? Political Institutions and the Scope for Action," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 951-971, August.
    13. Simplice A. Asongu & Oasis Kodila-Tedika, 2018. "Determinants of Property Rights Protection in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 9(4), pages 1291-1308, December.
    14. Leonardo M. Klüppel & Lamar Pierce & Jason A. Snyder, 2018. "Perspective—The Deep Historical Roots of Organization and Strategy: Traumatic Shocks, Culture, and Institutions," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 29(4), pages 702-721, August.
    15. Sascha O. Becker & Katrin Boeckh & Christa Hainz & Ludger Woessmann, 2016. "The Empire Is Dead, Long Live the Empire! Long‐Run Persistence of Trust and Corruption in the Bureaucracy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(590), pages 40-74, February.
    16. Marta Santagata, 2022. "Roads and intra‐national trade: Evidence from Italian regions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 101(6), pages 1383-1409, December.
    17. Thorsten Beck & Ross Levine, 2008. "Legal Institutions and Financial Development," Springer Books, in: Claude Ménard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, chapter 11, pages 251-278, Springer.
    18. Hanlon, W.Walker & Heblich, Stephan, 2022. "History and urban economics," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    19. Lubna Hasan, 2007. "Myths and Realities of Long-run Development: A Look at Deeper Determinants," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 46(1), pages 19-44.
    20. Allen, Franklin & Qian, Jun & Qian, Meijun, 2005. "Law, finance, and economic growth in China," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 57-116, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Roman roads; History; Historical infrastructure; Persistence; Italy; NUTS;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • O52 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Europe
    • R40 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:italej:v:7:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1007_s40797-020-00120-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.