History and Urban Economics

55 Pages Posted: 28 Sep 2020 Last revised: 5 Feb 2025

See all articles by W. Walker Hanlon

W. Walker Hanlon

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business

Stephan Heblich

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and Dept. of Economics,

Date Written: September 2020

Abstract

This article reviews recent literature using insights from history to answer central questions in urban economics. This area of research has seen rapid growth in the past decade, thanks to new technologies that have made available increasingly rich data stretching far back in time. The focus is to review innovative methods to exploit historical information and discuss applications of these data that provide new insights into (i) the long run growth of cities or regional economies and (ii) the spatial organization of economic activities within cities. The review also surveys the growing literature outside urban economics that uses the historical urbanization as a proxy for economic growth, discusses differences between how economic historians and urban economists think about the relationship between urbanization and growth, and considers how these views might be reconciled.

Suggested Citation

Hanlon, William Walker and Heblich, Stephan, History and Urban Economics (September 2020). NBER Working Paper No. w27850, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3700678

William Walker Hanlon (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - Leonard N. Stern School of Business ( email )

44 West 4th Street
Suite 9-160
New York, NY NY 10012
United States

Stephan Heblich

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and Dept. of Economics, ( email )

105 St George Street
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G8
Canada

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