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Trade shocks, labour markets and elections in the first globalisation

Author

Listed:
  • Bräuer, Richard
  • Hungerland, Wolf-Fabian
  • Kersting, Felix
Abstract
This paper studies the economic and political effects of a large trade shock in agriculture - the grain invasion from the Americas - in Prussia during the first globalisation (1871-1913). We show that this shock accelerated the structural change in the Prussian economy through migration of workers to booming cities. In contrast to studies using today's data, we do not observe declining per capita income and political polarisation in counties affected by foreign competition. Our results suggest that the negative and persistent effects of trade shocks we see today are not a universal feature of globalisation, but depend on labour mobility. For our analysis, we digitise data from Prussian industrial and agricultural censuses on the county level and combine it with national trade data at the product level. We exploit the cross-regional variation in cultivated crops within Prussia and instrument with Italian trade data to isolate exogenous variation.

Suggested Citation

  • Bräuer, Richard & Hungerland, Wolf-Fabian & Kersting, Felix, 2021. "Trade shocks, labour markets and elections in the first globalisation," IWH-CompNet Discussion Papers 4/2021, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:iwhcom:42021
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    agriculture; elections; Germany; globalisation; import competition; labour market; migration; Prussia; trade shock;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F16 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade and Labor Market Interactions
    • F66 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Labor
    • F68 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Policy
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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