IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ieb/wpaper/doc2012-23.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Space, settlements, towns: the influence of geography and market access on settlement distribution and urbanization

Author

Listed:
  • Florian Ploeckl

    (University of Oxford)

Abstract

The spatial distribution of economic activity is strongly linked to the structure of the urban system. The origin and development of the spatial pattern of this system is separated into two stages, the diffusion of settlements and their potential transition to urban status. The theoretical framework incorporates the influence of geographic characteristics and location interdependence as central mechanisms in both stages. Their relative importance for both is tested empirically with the historical settlement pattern in Saxony as a case study. After investigating with a spatial point process approach how geographic endowments and location interdependence shape the spatial distribution of all settlements within the state, I apply a spatial probit estimation to determine how these endowments and interdependence, which resembles a market access effect, influence the likelihood that a settlement transitioned to a town. The results indicate that geographic factors are the primary influence on the spatial distribution and urbanization of settlements, while the spatial relationship has a significant but small clustering impact. Furthermore the determinants of the spatial distribution of size based and institutional towns are compared, demonstrating that the influence of location interdependence is quite close, while there are some significant differences in the influence of physical geography.

Suggested Citation

  • Florian Ploeckl, 2012. "Space, settlements, towns: the influence of geography and market access on settlement distribution and urbanization," Working Papers 2012/23, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    • Handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:doc2012-23
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ieb.ub.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2012-IEB-WorkingPaper-23.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ploeckl, Florian, 2012. "Endowments and market access; the size of towns in historical perspective: Saxony, 1550–1834," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 607-618.
    2. Mark Berman & T. Rolf Turner, 1992. "Approximating Point Process Likelihoods with Glim," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 41(1), pages 31-38, March.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Florian Ploeckl, 2017. "Towns (and villages): definitions and implications in a historical setting," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 11(2), pages 269-287, May.
    7. Nathan Nunn & Diego Puga, 2012. "Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 20-36, February.
    8. Florian Ploeckl, 2010. "The Zollverein and the Formation of a Customs Union," Oxford Economic and Social History Working Papers _084, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    9. Florian Ploeckl, 2008. "Borders, Market Size and Urban Growth, The Case of Saxon Towns and the Zollverein in the 19th Century," Working Papers 966, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    10. Baddeley, Adrian & Turner, Rolf, 2005. "spatstat: An R Package for Analyzing Spatial Point Patterns," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 12(i06).
    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. Ploeckl, Florian, 2012. "Endowments and market access; the size of towns in historical perspective: Saxony, 1550–1834," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 607-618.
    2. Florian Ploeckl, 2017. "Towns (and villages): definitions and implications in a historical setting," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 11(2), pages 269-287, May.

    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. Florian Ploeckl, 2012. "Space, settlements, towns: the influence of geography and market access on settlement distribution and urbanization," Working Papers 2012/23, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    2. Florian Ploeckl, 2017. "Towns (and villages): definitions and implications in a historical setting," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 11(2), pages 269-287, May.
    3. Ploeckl, Florian, 2021. "The next town over: On the clustering of towns and settlements before modern economic growth," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Börner, Lars & Severgnini, Battista, 2011. "Epidemic trade," Discussion Papers 2011/12, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    5. Jan David Bakker & Stephan Maurer & Jörn-Steffen Pischke & Ferdinand Rauch, 2021. "Of Mice and Merchants: Connectedness and the Location of Economic Activity in the Iron Age," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 103(4), pages 652-665, October.
    6. Ferdinand Rauch & Guy Michaels, 2013. "Resetting the Urban Network: 117-2012," Economics Series Working Papers 684, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    7. Ferdinand Rauch & Stephan Maurer & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2018. "Of Mice and Merchants: Trade and Growth in the Iron Age," Economics Series Working Papers 854, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    8. Duc A. Nguyen & Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen & Tristan Kohl, 2023. "What’s in a Name? Initial Geography and German Urban Development," CESifo Working Paper Series 10435, CESifo.
    9. Hanlon, W.Walker & Heblich, Stephan, 2022. "History and urban economics," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    10. Ploeckl, Florian, 2008. "Borders, Market Size and Urban Growth, The Case of Saxon Towns and the Zollverein in the 19th Century," Working Papers 55, Yale University, Department of Economics.
    11. Malik Curuk & Sjak Smulders, 2016. "Malthus Meets Luther: The Economics Behind the German Reformation," CESifo Working Paper Series 6010, CESifo.
    12. Thomas Keywood & Jörg Baten, 2021. "Elite violence and elite numeracy in Europe from 500 to 1900 CE: roots of the divergence," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 15(2), pages 319-389, May.
    13. Maria Waldinger, 2015. "The economic effects of long-term climate change: evidence from the little ice age," GRI Working Papers 214, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    14. Theresa Finley & Mark Koyama, 2018. "Plague, Politics, and Pogroms: The Black Death, the Rule of Law, and the Persecution of Jews in the Holy Roman Empire," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 61(2), pages 253-277.
    15. Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia & Alfonso Díez-Minguela & Julio Martinez-Galarraga, 2021. "The shadow of cities: size, location and the spatial distribution of population," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(3), pages 729-753, June.
    16. Traviss Cassidy & Mark Dincecco & Massimiliano Gaetano Onorato, 2015. "The Economic Legacy of Warfare: Evidence from European Regions," Working Papers 6/2015, IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca, revised Jul 2015.
    17. Florian Ploeckl, 2015. "It's all in the Mail: The Economic Geography of the German Empire," School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers 2015-12, University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy.
    18. Baten, Jörg & Keywood, Thomas & Wamser, Georg, 2021. "Territorial state capacity and elite violence from the 6th to the 19th century," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    19. Anderson, R. Warren & Johnson, Noel D & Koyama, Mark, 2013. "From the Persecuting to the Protective State? Jewish Expulsions and Weather Shocks from 1100 to 1800," MPRA Paper 44228, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Charles Angelucci & Simone Meraglia & Nico Voigtländer, 2017. "How Merchant Towns Shaped Parliaments: From the Norman Conquest of England to the Great Reform Act," NBER Working Papers 23606, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Settlement; urbanization; endowments; location interdependence;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population
    • N93 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    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:ieb:wpaper:doc2012-23. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iebubes.html .

    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.