IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4274.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Princes and Merchants: European City Growth before the Industrial Revolution

Author

Listed:
  • J. Bradford De Long
  • Andrei Shleifer

Abstract

As measured by the pace of city growth in western Europe from 1000 to 1800. absolutist monarchs stunted the growth of commerce and industry. A region ruled by an absolutist prince saw its total urban population shrink by one hundred thousand people per century relative to a region without absolutist government. This might be explained by higher rates of taxation under revenue-maximizing absolutist governments than under non-absolutist governments. which care more about general economic prosperity and less about State revenue.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Bradford De Long & Andrei Shleifer, 1993. "Princes and Merchants: European City Growth before the Industrial Revolution," NBER Working Papers 4274, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4274
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4274.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    2. Brennan,Geoffrey & Buchanan,James M., 2006. "The Power to Tax," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521027922.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Daniel C. Monchuk & John A. Miranowski & Dermot J. Hayes & Bruce A. Babcock, 2007. "An Analysis of Regional Economic Growth in the U.S. Midwest," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 29(1), pages 17-39.
    2. Monastiriotis, Vassilis & Zilic, Ivan, 2020. "The economic effects of political disintegration: Lessons from Serbia and Montenegro," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    3. Philip Bodman & Harry Campbell & Kelly-Ana Heaton & Andrew Hodge, "undated". "Fiscal Decentralisation, Macroeconomic Conditions and Economic Growth in Australia," MRG Discussion Paper Series 2609, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    4. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Roberto Ezcurra, 2011. "Is fiscal decentralization harmful for economic growth? Evidence from the OECD countries," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 619-643, July.
    5. Asatryan, Zareh & Feld, Lars P., 2015. "Revisiting the link between growth and federalism: A Bayesian model averaging approach," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 772-781.
    6. Bartolini, David & Ninka, Eniel & Santolini, Raffaella, 2017. "Tax Decentralisation, Labour productivity and Employment," MPRA Paper 81070, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. J. Bradford De Long & Andrei Shleifer, "undated". "Princes and Merchants: City Growth Before the Industrial Revolution," J. Bradford De Long's Working Papers _111, University of California at Berkeley, Economics Department.
    8. Henryk Wnorowski, 2010. "Wpływ podatków na wzrost gospodarczy i konkurencyjność w ujęciu instytucjonalnym," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 4, pages 47-65.
    9. Chen, Zhigang & Lv, Bingyang & Liu, Yongzheng, 2019. "Financial development and the composition of government expenditure: Theory and cross-country evidence," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 600-611.
    10. Stojcic, Nebojsa & Suman Tolic, Meri, 2018. "Direct and indirect effects of fiscal decentralisation on economic growth," MPRA Paper 108762, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised May 2019.
    11. Stansel, Dean, 2005. "Local decentralization and local economic growth: A cross-sectional examination of US metropolitan areas," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 55-72, January.
    12. Daniel Ştefan Armeanu & Georgeta Vintilă & Ştefan Cristian Gherghina, 2017. "Empirical Study towards the Drivers of Sustainable Economic Growth in EU-28 Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-22, December.
    13. Esa Mangeloja, 2004. "Interrelationship of economic growth and regional religious properties," ERSA conference papers ersa04p94, European Regional Science Association.
    14. Maria Dolores Guillo & Fidel Perez-Sebastian, 2015. "Convergence in a Dynamic Heckscher–Ohlin Model with Land," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 725-734, August.
    15. Sato, Sumie & Fukushige, Mototsugu, 2009. "Globalization and economic inequality in the short and long run: The case of South Korea 1975-1995," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 62-68, January.
    16. Cooray, Arusha, 2011. "The role of the government in financial sector development," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 928-938, May.
    17. Jeffrey Frankel, 2014. "Mauritius: African Success Story," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume IV: Sustainable Growth, pages 295-342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Jan Fagerberg & Bengt-Åke Lundvall & Martin Srholec, 2018. "Global Value Chains, National Innovation Systems and Economic Development," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 30(3), pages 533-556, July.
    19. Kar, Sabyasachi & Pritchett, Lant & Raihan, Selim & Sen, Kunal, 2013. "Looking for a break: Identifying transitions in growth regimes," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 38(PB), pages 151-166.
    20. Iamsiraroj, Sasi, 2016. "The foreign direct investment–economic growth nexus," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 116-133.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • K20 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - 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:nbr:nberwo:4274. 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/nberrus.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.