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Culture, spatial diffusion of ideas and their long-lasting imprints—evidence from Froebel’s kindergarten movement

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  • Stefan Bauernschuster
  • Oliver Falck

Abstract

We document the spatial diffusion of Friedrich Froebel’s radical invention of kindergartens in 19th-century Germany. The first kindergarten was founded at Froebel’s birthplace. Early spatial diffusion can be explained by cultural proximity, measured by historical dialect similarity, to Froebel’s birthplace. This result is robust to the inclusion of higher order polynomials in geographic distance and similarity measures with respect to industry, geography or religion. Our findings suggest that a common cultural basis facilitates the spill-over of ideas. We further show that the contemporaneous spatial pattern of child care coverage is still correlated with cultural similarity to Froebel’s place of birth.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Bauernschuster & Oliver Falck, 2015. "Culture, spatial diffusion of ideas and their long-lasting imprints—evidence from Froebel’s kindergarten movement," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 601-630.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jecgeo:v:15:y:2015:i:3:p:601-630.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jeg/lbu028
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    Cited by:

    1. Pamela Campa & Michel Serafinelli, 2019. "Politico-Economic Regimes and Attitudes: Female Workers under State Socialism," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(2), pages 233-248, May.
    2. Daniel Oto-Peralías, 2018. "What do street names tell us? The ‘city-text’ as socio-cultural data," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 187-211.
    3. Mingshui Lin & Juan Lin & Caibin Lin & An Zhang & Kaiyong Wang, 2018. "Spatial Diffusion of Taiwanese Enterprises in Mainland China under the Vision of Rural Industrial Vitalization," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-18, October.
    4. Binzel, Christine & Link, Andreas & Ramachandran, Rajesh, 2021. "Language, Knowledge, and Growth: Evidence from Early Modern Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 15454, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Wyrwich, Michael, 2015. "Differences in female labor force participation in East and West Germany: Socialist legacy and pre-socialist tradition," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113083, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Jens Suedekum, 2018. "Economic effects of differences in dialect," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 414-414, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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