Transportation and development: insights from the U.S., 1840-1860
We study the effects of large transportation costs on economic development. We argue that the Midwest and the Northeast of the U.S. is a natural case because starting from 1840 decent data is available showing that the two regions shared key characteristics with today’s developing countries and that transportation costs were large and then came way down. To disentangle the effects of the large reduction in transportation costs from those of other changes that happened during 1840?1860, we build a model that speaks to the distribution of people across regions and across the sectors of production. We find that the large reduction in transportation costs was a quantitatively important force behind the settlement of the Midwest and the regional specialization that concentrated agriculture in the Midwest and industry in the Northeast. Moreover, we find that it led to the convergence of the regional per capita incomes measured in current regional prices and that it increased real GDP per capita. However, the increase in real GDP per capita is considerably smaller than that resulting from the productivity growth in the nontransportation sectors.
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| Date of creation: | 2009 |
| Date of revision: | |
| Handle: | RePEc:fip:fedmsr:425 |
| Contact details of provider: | Postal: 90 Hennepin Avenue, P.O. Box 291, Minneapolis, MN 55480-0291 Phone: (612) 204-5000 Web page: http://minneapolisfed.org/ More information through EDIRC
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| Order Information: | Web: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/ |
References listed on IDEAS
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- Coelho, Philip R. P. & Shepherd, James F., 1976. "Regional differences in real wages: The United States, 1851-1880," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 203-230, April.
- Thomas Weiss, 1987. "The Farm Labor Force by Region, 1820-1860: Revised Estimates and Implications for Growth," NBER Working Papers 2438, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
- Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2008.
"The U.S. Westward Expansion,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 49(1), pages 81-110, 02.
- Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2003. "The U.S. Westward Expansion," Economie d'Avant Garde Research Reports 4, Economie d'Avant Garde, revised Apr 2004.
- Guillaume Vandenbroucke, 2006. "The U.S. Westward Expansion," IEPR Working Papers 06.59, Institute of Economic Policy Research (IEPR).
- Akos Valentinyi & Berthold Herrendorf, 2008.
"Measuring Factor Income Shares at the Sectoral Level,"
IEHAS Discussion Papers
0803, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
- Akos Valentinyi & Berthold Herrendorf, 2008. "Measuring Factor Income Shares at the Sector Level," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(4), pages 820-835, October.
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