IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/anresc/v50y2013i1p135-152.html

Geography, institutions and urban development: Italian cities, 1300–1861

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Percoco

Abstract

Recent studies have highlighted the role of geography and institutions as key determinants of urban development. In this paper, we test this hypothesis by considering the case of Italian cities over a very long time period, i.e., from 1300 to 1861. Our measure of development is the urban population, and we relate it to geographical and institutional variables at both city and regional level. We find that the quality of institutions as measured by the experience of free city-state and the presence of a university has a positive effect on urban development, whereas we could not find a robust impact of the quality of regional government. However, we also find that cities located in mountain areas grew less than cities located in lowlands, possibly with access to the sea. We interpret these results as evidence of the importance of urban institutions and geography in shaping urban development. Copyright Springer-Verlag 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Percoco, 2013. "Geography, institutions and urban development: Italian cities, 1300–1861," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 50(1), pages 135-152, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:anresc:v:50:y:2013:i:1:p:135-152
    DOI: 10.1007/s00168-011-0482-0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00168-011-0482-0
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00168-011-0482-0?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eaton, Jonathan & Eckstein, Zvi, 1997. "Cities and growth: Theory and evidence from France and Japan," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4-5), pages 443-474, August.
    2. De Long, J Bradford & Shleifer, Andrei, 1993. "Princes and Merchants: European City Growth before the Industrial Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(2), pages 671-702, October.
    3. Duncan Black & Vernon Henderson, 2003. "Urban evolution in the USA," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 343-372, October.
    4. Bosker, Maarten & Brakman, Steven & Garretsen, Harry & De Jong, Herman & Schramm, Marc, 2008. "Ports, plagues and politics: explaining Italian city growth 1300–1861," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 97-131, April.
    5. Esteban Rossi-Hansberg & Mark L. J. Wright, 2007. "Urban Structure and Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 597-624.
    6. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2006. "Path dependence and regional economic evolution," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 395-437, August.
    7. John Luke Gallup & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Mellinger, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," CID Working Papers 1, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    8. Malanima, Paolo, 2005. "Urbanisation and the Italian economy during the last millennium," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 97-122, April.
    9. Marco Percoco, 2014. "Path dependence, institutions and the density of economic activities: Evidence from Italian cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 93(1), pages 53-76, March.
    10. Gallup, John L. & Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Mellinger, Andrew, "undated". "Geography and Economic Development," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics geodata, Boston College Department of Economics.
    11. Marco Percoco, 2012. "Entrepreneurship, Social Capital and Institutions: Evidence from Italy," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(3), pages 339-355, September.
    12. 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.
    13. John Luke Gallup & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Mellinger, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," CID Working Papers 01A, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    14. Krugman, Paul, 1996. "Confronting the Mystery of Urban Hierarchy," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 399-418, December.
    15. Gabaix, Xavier & Ioannides, Yannis M., 2004. "The evolution of city size distributions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 53, pages 2341-2378, Elsevier.
    16. Gallup, John & Sachs, Jeffrey, 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) Papers 294434, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government.
    17. Pierson, Paul, 2000. "Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(2), pages 251-267, June.
    18. Gallup, J.L. & Sachs, J.D. & Mullinger, A., 1999. "Geography and Economic Development," Papers 1, Chicago - Graduate School of Business.
    19. Fujita, Masahisa & Mori, Tomoya, 1996. "The role of ports in the making of major cities: Self-agglomeration and hub-effect," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 93-120, April.
    20. Ioannides, Yannis M. & Overman, Henry G., 2003. "Zipf's law for cities: an empirical examination," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 127-137, March.
    21. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James Robinson, 2005. "The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 546-579, June.
    22. John W. McArthur & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "Institutions and Geography: Comment on Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2000)," NBER Working Papers 8114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. 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.
    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. Francesco Giffoni & Matteo Gomellini & Dario Pellegrino, 2019. "Human Capital And Urban Growth In Italy, 1981–2001," Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(1-2), pages 77-101, March.
    2. Luca De Benedictis & Vania Licio & Anna Maria Pinna, 2023. "From the historical Roman road network to modern infrastructure in Italy," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(5), pages 1162-1191, November.
    3. Torben Dall Schmidt & Peter Sandholt Jensen & Amber Naz, 2014. "New crops, local soils and urbanization: Clover, potatoes and the growth of Danish market towns,1672-1901," Working Papers 0065, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    4. Antonio Accetturo & Sauro Mocetti, 2019. "Historical Origins and Developments of Italian Cities," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 5(2), pages 205-222, July.

    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. Soo, Kwok Tong, 2005. "Zipf's Law for cities: a cross-country investigation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 239-263, May.
    2. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Ferran A. Mazaira‐Font, 2022. "Geography and regional economic growth: The high cost of deviating from nature," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 360-388, March.
    3. Breinlich, Holger & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2014. "Regional Growth and Regional Decline," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 4, pages 683-779, Elsevier.
    4. Ying Fang & Yang Zhao, 2013. "Do Institutions Matter? Estimating the Effect of Institutions on Econo- mic Performance in China," Working Papers 2013-10-14, Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE), Xiamen University.
    5. Tobias D. Ketterer & Andrés Rodríguez‐Pose, 2018. "Institutions vs. ‘first‐nature’ geography: What drives economic growth in Europe's regions?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 97(S1), pages 25-62, March.
    6. Valentina A Assenova & Matthew Regele, 2017. "Revisiting the effect of colonial institutions on comparative economic development," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(5), pages 1-16, May.
    7. Mauricio Cárdenas, 2007. "Economic growth in Colombia: A reversal of "Fortune"?," Revista ESPE - Ensayos Sobre Política Económica, Banco de la República, vol. 25(53), pages 220-259.
    8. Rok Spruk & Mitja Kovac, 2019. "Transaction costs and economic growth under common legal system: State‐level evidence from Mexico," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 240-292, July.
    9. Richard S. J. Tol, 2021. "The Economic Impact of Climate in the Long Run," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Anil Markandya & Dirk Rübbelke (ed.), CLIMATE AND DEVELOPMENT, chapter 1, pages 3-36, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    10. Lionel Fontagné & Gianluca Santoni, 2019. "Agglomeration economies and firm-level labor misallocation," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 251-272.
    11. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624, December.
    12. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Ketterer, Tobias, 2016. "Institutions vs. ‘First-Nature’ Geography – What Drives Economic Growth in Europe’s Regions?," CEPR Discussion Papers 11322, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    13. Braunfels, Elias, 2016. "Further Unbundling Institutions," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 13/2016, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    14. Jan Fagerberg & Martin Srholec, 2005. "Catching up: What are the Critical Factors for success?," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20050401, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    15. David Castells-Quintana & Maria del Pilar Lopez-Uribe & Tom McDermott, 2015. "Climate change and the geographical and institutional drivers of economic development," GRI Working Papers 198, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    16. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "The Impact of Fundamental Development Factors on Different Income Groups: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113128, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Delgadillo Chavarria, Carlos Bruno, 2019. "El Efecto de la Mediterraneidad sobre el Flujo Comercial Internacional: Evidencia Empírica Internacional y para América del Sur (1990-2016) [The Effect of Landlocked Country Status on International Trade Flow: International and South America Empir," MPRA Paper 96093, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 Sep 2019.
    18. Wu, Haijun & Yang, Jidong & Yang, Qijing, 2021. "The pressure of economic growth and the issuance of Urban Investment Bonds: Based on panel data from 2005 to 2011 in China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    19. Lopez-Uribe, Maria del Pilar & Castells-Quintana, David & McDermott, Thomas K. J., 2017. "Geography, institutions and development: a review ofthe long-run impacts of climate change," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65147, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. repec:pst:wpaper:320 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Flückiger, Matthias & Ludwig, Markus, 2020. "Malaria suitability, urbanization and subnational development in sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    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:anresc:v:50:y:2013:i:1:p:135-152. 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.