Openness and urban concentration in Europe, 1870-1990

Arbeitspapier

This paper provides a new attempt to examine the relationship between an economy's exposure to foreign trade and its degree of urban concentration. In contrast to previous work, which is often based on rich cross-country data sets, the analysis is focused exclusively on European countries, allowing to explore reliable historical data. The results generally confirm earlier findings of a negative relationship between openness and city size for the period from 1970 to 1990, but are much weaker for other time periods and concentration measures. Therefore, it is argued that the linkage between trade policy and urban centralization is not robust.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: HWWA Discussion Paper ; No. 121

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity ; Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
• Subject: Urban Concentration ; Openness ; Urban Primacy ; City Size ; Politik der offenen Tür ; Außenhandelsgeschichte ; Urbanisierung ; Regionale Konzentration ; Schätzung ; Westeuropa

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Nitsch, Volker
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA)
• (where): Hamburg
• (when): 2001

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/19430
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET