The French revolution and German industrialization: dubious models and doubtful causality
The French revolution and German industrialization: dubious models and doubtful causality
复制标题
法国大革命和德国工业化：可疑的模型和可疑的因果关系
DOI：
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发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
D. Bromley
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
M. Kopsidis;D. Bromley
摘要我们对Acemoglu等人提出的经济史大爆炸方法提出了质疑。(2011)。有争议的创世故事是法国大革命和随后法国占领德国的一小部分。我们认为，号称刺激德国工业化的四项制度改革的日期都有误。这些修正抵消了ACJR计量经济学模型的任何解释能力。此外，即使有了正确的年份，他们的识别策略也受到了一个有缺陷的“解释性”变量--“改革年限”的破坏。我们表明，这个变量只是作为一年趋势进入他们的模型，除了时间的流逝之外什么也解释不了。我们开发了一个固定效应模型，以捕捉1840年后不久在几个地区开始的煤炭生产被忽视的作用。这一模型为德国的工业化和城市化提供了可信的解释。毕竟，大多数经济变化都是持续的。大爆炸式的入侵效果令人怀疑。
Abstract We challenge the ‘big-bang’ approach to economic history offered by Acemoglu et al. (2011). The creation story in dispute is the French Revolution and the subsequent French occupation of a very small portion of Germany. We show that the four institutional reforms claimed to have spurred German industrialization have been incorrectly dated. These corrections nullify any explanatory power of the ACJR econometric model. Moreover, even with the corrected vintages, their identification strategy is undermined by a flawed ‘explanatory’ variable – ‘years of reform’. We show that this variable simply enters their model as a year trend and explains nothing except the passage of time. We develop a fixed-effects model to capture the overlooked role of coal production that began in several regions shortly after 1840. This model offers a credible account of German industrialization and urbanization. Most economic change is, after all, continuous. Big-bang intrusions are of doubtful efficacy.