Wolf, Nikolaus, 1973- (2008) Was Germany ever united? Evidence from intra- and international trade 1885–1933. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick, Department of Economics. (Warwick economic research papers.

Preview

PDF WRAP_Wolf_twerp_871.pdf - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader Download (298Kb)

Abstract

When did Germany become economically integrated? Within the framework of a gravity model, based on a new data set of about 40,000 observations on trade flows within and across the borders of Germany over the period 1885 – 1933, I explore the geography of trade costs across Central Europe. There are three key results. First, the German Empire before 1914 was a poorly integrated economy, both relative to integration across the borders of the German state and in absolute terms. Second, this internal fragmentation resulted from cultural heterogeneity, from administrative borders within Germany, and from geographical barriers that divided Germany along natural trade routes into eastern and western parts. Third, internal integration improved, while external integration worsened after World War I and again with the Great Depression, in part because of border changes along the lines of ethno-linguistic heterogeneity. By the end of the Weimar Republic in 1933, Germany was reasonably well integrated.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions D History General and Old World > DD Germany
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Business -- Germany -- History, Germany -- History -- 1871-1918, Germany -- History -- 1918-1933, Germany -- Economic conditions -- 1888-1918, Germany -- Economic conditions -- 1918-1945
Series Name:	Warwick economic research papers
Publisher:	University of Warwick, Department of Economics
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Date:	2008
Number:	No.871
Number of Pages:	56
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Fritz Thyssen-Stiftung
Adapted As:	Wolf, N. (2009). Was Germany ever united? Evidence from intra- and international trade, 1885–1933. Journal of Economic History, 69(3), pp. 846-881.
References:	Königlich-Preußisches Ministerium der öffentlichen Arbeiten. Statistik der Güterbewegung auf Deutschen Eisenbahnen im Jahre 1885, Berlin, 1886. Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt. Statistik der Güterbewegung auf Deutschen Eisenbahnen im Jahre 1913, Berlin, 1914. Statistisches Reichsamt. Die Güterbewegung auf Deutschen Eisenbahnen im Jahre 1925, Berlin 1926. Statistisches Reichsamt. Die Güterbewegung auf Deutschen Eisenbahnen im Jahre 1933, Berlin 1934. Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt. Verkehr und Wasserstände der Deutschen Binnenwasserstrassen im Jahre 1913, Berlin 1914. Reedition as Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, Volume 274, Osnabrück, 1977. Statistisches Reichsamt. Verkehr auf Deutschen Binnenwasserstrassen im Jahre 1925, Berlin 1926, Reedition as Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, Volume 326, Osnabrück, 1977.. Statistisches Reichsamt. Verkehr auf Deutschen Binnenwasserstrassen im Jahre 1933, Berlin 1934, Reedition as Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, Volume 447, Osnabrück, 1977. Alesina, Alberto and Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln. “Good Bye Lenin (or not?) – The Effect of Communism on People’s Preferences,” American Economic Review 97, no 4 (2007): 1507- 1528. Anderson, James and Eric van Wincoop. “Gravity with Gravitas: A solution to the Border Puzzle”, American Economic Review 93, no. 1 (2003): 170-192. Anderson, James and Eric van Wincoop. “Trade Costs”, Journal of Economic Literature 42, no.3 (2004): 691-751. Aretin, Karl Otmar von. Das Alte Reich. 1648-1806, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1993. Broda, Christian and David E. Weinstein. "Globalization and the Gains from Variety," Quarterly Journal of Economics 121, no. 2 (2006): 541-585. Buch, Claudia and Farid Toubal. “Openness and Growth: The Long Shadow of the Berlin Wall”, IAW Discussion Paper 31, 2007. Combes, P.-P., M. Lafourcade, and T. Mayer. “The Trade-creating Effects of Business and Social Networks: Evidence from France”, Journal of International Economics 66, no. 1 (2005): 1-29. Crafts, Nicholas. “The ‘Death of Distance’. What does it mean for economic development?”, World Economics 6 no. 3 (2005): 1-14. De Martonne, Emmanuel, Europe Centrale (2 vols.), Paris: Geographie Universelle, 1930. Deardorff, Alan, “Local Comparative Advantage: Trade Costs and the Pattern of Trade”, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan WP 500, 2004. Dickinson, Robert E. The Regions of Germany, New York: Oxford UP, 1945. Disdier Anne-Célia and Keith Head. “The Puzzling Persistence of the Distance Effect on Bilateral Trade,” Review of Economics and Statistics 90, no. 1 (2008): 37-41. Eaton, Jonathan and Samuel Kortum. “Technology, Geography and Trade”, Econometrica LXX (2002): 1741-1779. Ellis, Howard S. Exchange Control in Central Europe, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941. Engel, Charles and J. Rogers. “How Wide is the Border?”, American Economic Review 86, no. 5 (1996): 1112-25. Evans, Caroline "The Economic Significance of National Border Effects," American Economic Review, 93, no. 4 (2003): 1291-1312. Federico, Giovanni. “Testing Market Integration”, EUI – HEC, Florence, mimeo, 2008. Fischer, Fritz. Griff nach der Weltmacht. Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschlands 1914/1918, Düsseldorf: Droste, 1961. Frank, Harald. Regionale Entwicklungsdisparitäten im deutschen Industrialisierungsprozess 1849-1939, Münster: LIT Verlag, 1993. Fremdling, Rainer. “Regionale Interdependenzen zwischen Montanregionen in der Industrialisierung“ In Die Industrialisierung Europäischer Montanregionen im 19. Jahrhundert, edited by Toni Pierenkemper, 365-388, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002. Fremdling, Rainer, Ruth Federspiel, and Andreas Kunz. Statistik der Eisenbahnen in Deutschland 1835-1989, St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verlag, , 1995. Getz, Heinrich. Die deutsche Rechtseinheit im 19. Jahrhundert als rechtspolitisches Problem, Bonn: Verlag Ludwig Roehrscheid, 1966. Greif, Avner. “Contract Enforceability and Economic Institution in Early Trade: The Maghribi Traders Coalition”, American Economic Review 83, no.3 (1993): 525–548. Hillberry, Russell and David Hummels. “Intranational Home Bias: Some Explanations", The Review of Economics and Statistics 85, no. 4 (2003): 1089-1092. Holtfrerich, Carl-Ludwig. "The monetary unification process in 19th-century Germany: relevance and lessons for Europe today" In A European Central Bank? Perspectives on monetary unification after ten years EMS, edited by M. de Cecco and A. Giovannini Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Hummels, David. “Towards a Geography of Trade Costs”, Purdue University, Mimeo, 2001. Kehr, Eckart. Der Primat der Innenpolitik. Gesammelte Aufsaetze zur Preussisch-Deutschen Sozialgeschichte (collection of works by Kehr edited by Hans-Ulrich Wehler), Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1965. Keller, Wolfgang and Carol Shiue. “Tariffs, Trains, and Trade: The Role of Institutions versus Technology in the Expansion of Markets”, University of Colorado, Mimeo, 2008. Köttgen, August. Studien über Getreideverkehr und Getreidepreise in Deutschland. Jena: Verlag von Gustav Fischer, 1890. Kunz, Andreas. “The economic performance of inland navigation in Germany, 1835-1935: A reassessment”. In Inland Navigation and Economic Development in Nineteenth-Century Europe, edited by Andreas Kunz and John Armstrong, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1995. Liepmann, Heinrich. Tariff Levels and the Economic Unity of Europe. London: Allen and Unwin, 1938. Heinemeyer, Hans-Christian, Max-Stephan Schulze and Nikolaus Wolf “Endogenous Borders? Exploring a natural experiment on border effects”, CEPR Discussion Paper 6909, 2008.. Helpman, Elhanan, Marc Melitz and Yona Rubinstein. “Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes” forthcoming in Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2008. McCallum, John. “National Borders Matter: Canada-U.S. Regional Trade Patterns”, American Economic Review 85, no. 3 (1995): 615-623. McCloskey, Deirde N. The Rhetoric of Economics, Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. Napp-Zinn, Anton Felix. Binnenschifffahrt und Eisenbahn. Werden, Gestalt und Problem ihres verhältnisses im Deutschen Reich, Leipzig: Gloeckner, 1928. Nippderdey, Thomas. Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1918. Zweiter Band. Machtstaat vor der Demokratie, München: Beck, 1993. Nitsch, Volker.“It's Not Right, But It's Okay: On the Measurement of Intra- and International Trade Distances“ Bankgesellschaft Berlin, mimeo, 2001. Nitsch, Volker and Nikolaus Wolf. “Tear down this Wall: On the Persistence of Borders in Trade”, Mimeo, 2008. Nunn, Nathan and Diego Puga. “Ruggedness: The blessing of bad geography in Africa”, CEPR DP 6253, 2007. Rauch, James E. “Business and Social Networks in International Trade”, Journal of Economic Literature 39 (2001): 1177-1203. Rauch, James E. and Vitor Trindade. ‘Ethnic Chinese Networks in International Trade’, Review of Economics and Statistics 84, no. 1 (2002): 116-130. Redding, Stephen J. and Daniel M. Sturm. “The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification”, forthcoming in American Economic Review, 2008. Redding, Stephen J. and Anthony Venables. “Economic Geography and International Inequality”, Journal of International Economics 62, no. 1(2004): 53-82. Rogowski, Ronald. Commerce and coalitions: How trade affects domestic political Alignments, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Rossi-Hansberg, Esteban. “A Spatial Theory of Trade”, American Economic Review 95, no. 5 (2005): 1464-1491. Santos Silva, Joao and Silvana Tenreyro. “The Log of Gravity” Review of Economics and Statistics 88, no. 4 (2006): 641-658. Schulze, Max-Stephan and Nikolaus Wolf. „On the Origins of Border Effects: Evidence from he Habsburg Customs Unions”, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 6327, 2007. Shiue, Carol. “From political Fragmentation towards a customs union: Border effects of the German Zollverein, 1815-1855“, European Review of Economic History, Vol. 9, no. 2 (2005): 129-162. Sleifer, Jaap. Planning Ahead and Falling Behind. The East German Economy in Comparison with West Germany 1936-2002 (= Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Beiheft 8), Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2006. Spiller Pablo and Cliff Huang. “On the extent of the market: wholesale gasoline in the Northeastern United States”, Journal of Industrial Economics 35 (1986): 131-145. Theil, H. Linear Aggregation of Economic Relations, Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1954. Treitschke, Heinrich von. Deutsche Geschichte im 19. Jahrhundert, 5 Teile, Leipzig: Hirzel, 1879-1894. Trenkler, Carsten and Nikolaus Wolf. “Economic integration across borders: the Polish interwar economy 1921-1937”, European Review of Economic History 9, no. 2 (2005): 199- 231. Voigt, Fritz. Verkehr. Zweiter Band. Erste Hälfte. Die Entwicklung des Verkehrssystems, Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1965. Wehler, Hans-Ulrich. Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871-1918, in J. Leuschner (ed.) Deutsche Geschichte Bd. 9, Göttingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 1973. Wolf, Nikolaus. “Path Dependent Border Effects: the Case of Poland’s reunification (1918- 1939)”, Explorations in Economic History Vol. 42 (2005): 414-438.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/1345

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item