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The Growth Lab Research Seminar series is a weekly seminar that brings together researchers from across the academic spectrum who share an interest in growth and development.
Speaker: Sebastian Braun, Professor of Economics, University of Bayreuth
Abstract: This paper shows that 19th-century industrialization is an important determinant of the significant changes in Germany’s economic geography observed in recent decades. Using novel data on economic activity in 163 labor market regions in West Germany, we establish that nearly half of them experienced a reversal of fortune between 1926 and 2019, i.e., they moved from the lower to the upper median of the income distribution or vice versa. Economic decline is concentrated in North Germany, economic ascent in the South. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in access to coal, we show that early industrialization turned from an advantage for economic development to a burden after World War II. The dominant position of heavy industry, supported by the local political-administrative system, limited regional adaptability when the old industries fell into crisis. Today, the early industrialized regions suffer from low innovation and deindustrialization. The (time-varying) effect of industrialization explains most of the decline in regional inequality observed in the 1960s and 1970s and about half of the current north-south gap in economic development.
Whether attending in-person or virtually, please register in advance. Room attendance is limited to the Harvard community. Seating availability is based on a first-come, first-served basis. The Zoom webinar is open to the public.
About the speaker:
Sebastian Braun is Professor of Economics at the University of Bayreuth where he holds the chair for Quantitative Economic History. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at IZA – Institute of Labor Economics. Before joining the University of Bayreuth, he was an Associate Professor at the University of St Andrews and a Senior Researcher at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Sebastian works at the intersection of international and regional economics, labor economics, and quantitative economic history. His main current research is on the economic effects of immigration and the causes of regional differences in economic development, with a focus on Germany in the 19th and 20th century. His current work on the long-term effects of industrialization on regional economic development in Germany is supported by a grant of the German Science Foundation.