Full Citation

Title: Railroads and Local Economic Development: the United States in the 1850s

Citation Type: Book, Section

Publication Year: 2008

ISBN: 9781135977856

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Abstract: The United States experienced a “transportation revolution” in the nineteenth century (Taylor 1951). The development of canals and other navigable waterways and, especially, railroads, linked together far flung factor and product markets and stimulated economic growth through division of labor and exploitation of regional comparative advantage (North 1961; Goodrich 1961; Ransom 1967, 1970; Williamson 1974; Haites et al. 1975). Economic historians have measured the aggregate social savings of the railroads in the nineteenth century (Fogel 1964; Fishlow 1965) but have paid less attention to measuring impacts of gaining rail access at the local economic level, despite the fact that contemporaries at the time were vitally interested in such effects and that economic theory provides useful guidance as to what these effects might have been.

Url: https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=QG-TAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA170&dq=IPUMS+OR+%22Integrated+Public+Use%22+OR+NHGIS+OR+%22National+Historical+Geographic+Information%22+OR+%22Integrated+Health+Interview+Series%22+OR+%22American+Time+Use+Survey+Data+E

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Authors: Haines, Michael R; Margo, Robert A

Editors: Rosenbloom, Joshua L.

Pages: 78-99

Volume Title: Quantitative Economic History: The Good of Counting

Publisher: Routledge

Publisher Location: London

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Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Land Use/Urban Organization

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