Wolf, Nikolaus, 1973-. (2009) Was Germany ever united? Evidence from intra- and international trade, 1885-1933. Journal of Economic History, Volume 69 (Number 3). pp. 846-881. ISSN 0022-0507

Preview

Text WRAP_Wolf_S0022050709001144a.pdf - Published Version Download (445Kb) | Preview

Abstract

When did Germany become economically integrated? Based on a large new data set on trade flows within and across the borders of Germany, I explore the geography of trade costs across Central Europe, 1885-1933. The key finding is that the German Empire before 1914 was a poorly integrated economy. This internal fragmentation resulted from cultural heterogeneity, from administrative borders, and from natural geography that divided Germany into eastern and western parts. After World War I and again with the Great Depression, internal integration improved, while external integration worsened in part because of border changes along the lines of ethnolinguistic heterogeneity. By the end of the Weimar Republic in 1933, Germany was reasonably well integrated.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DD Germany H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Germany -- Economic conditions -- 19th century, Germany -- Economic conditions -- 20th century, Boundaries -- Economic aspects -- Germany -- History -- 19th century, Social networks -- Germany -- History -- 19th century, Germany -- Commerce -- History --19th century, Germany -- Commerce -- History -- 20th century
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Economic History
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0022-0507
Date:	September 2009
Volume:	Volume 69
Number:	Number 3
Number of Pages:	36
Page Range:	pp. 846-881
Identification Number:	10.1017/S0022050709001144
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
Funder:	Fritz Thyssen-Stiftung
References:	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): 1507–28. Anderson, James, and Eric van Wincoop. “Gravity with Gravitas: A Solution to the Border Puzzle.” American Economic Review 93, no. 1 (2003): 170–92. ______. “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): 541–85. Buch, Claudia, and Farid Toubal. “Openness and Growth: The Long Shadow of the Berlin Wall.” IAW Discussion Paper No. 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. Deardorff, Alan. “Local Comparative Advantage: Trade Costs and the Pattern of Trade.” Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan Working Paper 500, 2004. De Martonne, Emmanuel. Europe Centrale. 2 vols. Paris: Geographie Universelle, 1930.Dickinson, Robert E. The Regions of Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 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 70, no. 5 (2002): 1741–79. Ellis, Howard S. Exchange Control in Central Europe. Cambridge, MA: 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.” Mimeo, EUI-HEC, Florence, 2008. Fischer, Fritz. Griff nach der Weltmacht: Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschlands 1914–1918. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1961. Frank, Harald. Regionale Entwicklungsdispari täten 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, 365–88. 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– 48. Heinemeyer, Hans-Christian, Max-Stephan Schulze, and Nikolaus Wolf. “Endogenous Borders? Exploring a Natural Experiment on Border Effects.” CEPR Discussion Paper No. 6909, 2008. Helpman, Elhanan, Marc Melitz, and Yona Rubinstein. “Estimating Trade Flows: Trading Partners and Trading Volumes.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123, no. 2 (2008): 441–87. Hillberry, Russell, and David Hummels. “Intranational Home Bias: Some Explanations.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 85, no. 4 (2003): 1089– 92. Holtfrerich, Carl-Ludwig. “The Monetary Unification Process in Nineteenth-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, 216–41. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Hummels, David. “Towards a Geography of Trade Costs.” Mimeo, Purdue University, 2001. Kehr, Eckart. Der Primat der Innenpolitik: Gesammelte Aufsaetze zur Preussisch- Deutschen Sozialgeschichte, 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.” Mimeo, University of Colorado, 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, 47– 78. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 1995. Liepmann, Heinrich. Tariff Levels and the Economic Unity of Europe. London: Allen and Unwin, 1938. McCallum, John. “National Borders Matter: Canada-U.S. Regional Trade Patterns.” American Economic Review 85, no. 3 (1995): 615–23. McCloskey, Deirdre N. The Rhetoric of Economics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998. Napp-Zinn, Anton Felix. Binnenschifffahrt und Eisenbahn. Werden, Gestalt und Problem ihres verhältnisses im Deutschen Reich. Leipzig: Gloeckner, 1928. Nipperdey, 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.” Mimeo, Bankgesellschaft Berlin, 2001. Nitsch, Volker, and Nikolaus Wolf. “Tear Down This Wall: On the Persistence of Borders in Trade.” Mimeo, University of Warwick and ETH Zurich, 2008. Nunn, Nathan, and Diego Puga. “Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa.” CEPR Discussion Paper No. 6253, 2007. Rauch, James E. “Business and Social Networks in International Trade.” Journal of Economic Literature 39, no. 4 (2001): 1177–1203. Rauch, James E., and Vitor Trindade. “Ethnic Chinese Networks in International Trade.” Review of Economics and Statistics 84, no. 1 (2002): 116–30. Redding, Stephen J., and Daniel M. Sturm. “The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification.” American Economic Review 98, no. 5 (2008): 1766–97. 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, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. Rossi-Hansberg, Esteban. “A Spatial Theory of Trade.” American Economic Review 95, no. 5 (2005): 1464–91. Santos Silva, Joao, and Silvana Tenreyro. “The Log of Gravity.” Review of Economics and Statistics 88, no. 4 (2006): 641–58. Schulze, Max-Stephan, and Nikolaus Wolf. “On the Origins of Border Effects: Insights from the Habsburg Empire.” Journal of Economic Geography 9, no. 1 (2009): 117–36. Shiue, Carol. “From Political Fragmentation Towards a Customs Union: Border Effects of the German Zollverein, 1815–1855.” European Review of Economic History 9, no. 2 (2005): 129–62. 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, no. 2 (1986): 131–45. 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 Deutsche Geschichte Bd. 9, edited by J. Leuschner. Göttingen: Vandenhoek and Ruprecht, 1973. Wolf, Nikolaus. “Path Dependent Border Effects: The Case of Poland’s Reunification, 1918–1939.” Explorations in Economic History 42, no. 3 (2005): 414–38.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/17323

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

Request changes to a record

Actions (login required)

View Item