Internal Borders and Population Geography in the Unification of Italy

A'Hearn, Brian; Rueda, Valeria

Abstract

We offer new evidence on the spatial economic impact of Italian unification. Adopting municipal population as a proxy for local economic activity, we construct a new geocoded dataset spanning the pre- and post-unification periods and discover robust evidence of an acceleration in growth near the former borders. A disproportionate improvement in market access boosted growth in these locations when barriers to trade were dismantled. Indirectly, unification's decisive contribution to intraregional market integration, local specialization and exchange, and economic development is revealed.

Citation

A'Hearn, B., & Rueda, V. (2023). Internal Borders and Population Geography in the Unification of Italy. Journal of Economic History, 83(3), 747-785. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050723000256

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 22, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Aug 31, 2023
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Apr 29, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: May 5, 2022
• Journal: Journal of Economic History
• Print ISSN: 0022-0507
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-6372
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 83
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 747-785
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050723000256
• Keywords: Economics, Econometrics and Finance (miscellaneous); Economics and Econometrics; History
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/7839504
• Publisher URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/internal-borders-and-population-geography-in-the-unification-of-italy/57FC9CF6B3AB3D2A31EDCA3E1A1CD062
• Additional Information: © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.