Stephan Maurer and his coauthor studied how the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 had changed market access and influenced the economic geography of the United States. They computed shipment cost-distances with and without the canal from each US county to each other US county and to international ports and computed the resulting change in market access. They found that a 1 percent increase in market access led to a total increase of population by around 4.5 percent in 1940. They computed similar elasticities for wages, land values and immigration from out of state. In this Quantitative History Webinar, Stephan will describe how they calculated their cost-distance matrix and explain their findings that tradable (manufacturing) industries react faster than non-tradable (service) industries.
Stephan's coauthor is Ferdinand Rauch (University of Oxford).
Live on Zoom on Tuesday, September 29, 2020
09:00 London | 10:00 Konstanz | 16:00 Hong Kong/Beijing/Singapore | 17:00 Tokyo | 18:00 Sydney
Photo credit: Marine, Thos. (Thomas), photographer / Public domain
About the Quantitative History Webinar Series
The Quantitative History Webinar Series, convened by Professor Zhiwu Chen and Dr. Chicheng Ma of The University of Hong Kong (HKU), aims to provide researchers, teachers and students with an online intellectual platform to keep up to date with the latest research in the field, promoting the dissemination of research findings and interdisciplinary use of quantitative methods in historical research. The Series is co-organized by the International Society for Quantitative History, HKU Business School, and the Asia Global Institute (AGI).
Conveners:
Professor Zhiwu Chen
Dr. Chicheng Ma