Essays in Long-run Development and Spatial Economics

Lehner, Alexander (2019) Essays in Long-run Development and Spatial Economics, [Dissertation thesis], Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna. Dottorato di ricerca in Economics, 31 Ciclo. DOI 10.48676/unibo/amsdottorato/9112.
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Abstract

This thesis tries to further our understanding for why some countries today are more prosperous than others. It establishes that part of today's observed variation in several proxies such as income or gender inequality have been determined in the distant past. Chapter one shows that 450 years of (Catholic) Portuguese colonisation had a long-lasting impact in India when it comes to education and female emancipation. Furthermore I use a historical quasi-experiment that happened 250 years ago in order to show that different outcomes have different degrees of persitence over time. Educational gaps between males and females seemingly wash out a few decades after the public provision of schools. The male biased sex-ratios on the other hand stay virtually unchanged despite governmental efforts. This provides evidence that deep rooted son preferences are much harder to overcome, suggesting that a differential approach is needed to tackle sex-selective abortion and female neglect. The second chapter proposes improvements for the execution of Spatial Regression Discontinuity Designs. These suggestions are accompanied by a full-fledged spatial statistical package written in R. Chapter three introduces a quantitative economic geography model in order to study the peculiar evolution of the European urban system on its way to the Industrial Revolution. It can explain the shift of economic gravity from the Mediterranean towards the North-Sea ("little divergence"). The framework provides novel insights on the importance of agricultural trade costs and the peculiar geography of Europe with its extended coastline and dense network of navigable rivers.

Abstract
Tipologia del documento
Tesi di dottorato
Autore
Lehner, Alexander
Supervisore
Dottorato di ricerca
Ciclo
31
Coordinatore
Settore disciplinare
Settore concorsuale
Parole chiave
Long-run Economic Development, Spatial Economics
URN:NBN
DOI
10.48676/unibo/amsdottorato/9112
Data di discussione
31 Ottobre 2019
URI

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