Coal and the European Industrial Revolution

No 19802, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We examine the importance of geographical proximity to coal as a factor underpinning comparative European economic development during the Industrial Revolution. Our analysis exploits geographical variation in city and coalfield locations, alongside temporal variation in the availability of coal-powered technologies, to quantify the effect of coal availability on historical city population sizes. Since we suspect that our coal measure could be endogenous, we use a geologically derived measure as an instrumental variable: proximity to rock strata from the Carboniferous era. Consistent with traditional historical accounts of the Industrial Revolution, we find that coal had a strong influence on city population size from 1800 onward. Counterfactual estimates of city population sizes indicate that our estimated coal effect explains around 60% of the growth in European city populations from 1750 to 1900. This result is robust to a number of alternative modelling assumptions.

JEL-codes: J10 N13 N53 O13 O14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-gro and nep-his
Note: DAE EFG
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (79)

Published as Alan Fernihough & Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke, 2021. "Coal and the European Industrial Revolution," The Economic Journal, vol 131(635), pages 1135-1149.

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Related works:
Journal Article: Coal and the European Industrial Revolution (2021)
Working Paper: Coal and the European Industrial Revolution (2014)
Working Paper: Coal and the European Industrial Revolution (2014)
Working Paper: Coal and the European Industrial Revolution (2014)
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