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De facto power of elites and regional growth
Author(s) -
Chung Seunghun,
Partridge Mark D.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
papers in regional science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.937
H-Index - 64
eISSN - 1435-5957
pISSN - 1056-8190
DOI - 10.1111/pirs.12556
Subject(s) - feudalism , industrialisation , servant , landlord , population , land tenure , population growth , economics , institution , productivity , agriculture , development economics , economic growth , geography , political science , market economy , sociology , politics , demography , archaeology , law , computer science , programming language
Institutions are considered one of the fundamental elements of economic growth. We analyse the impact of the feudal landlordship institution on regional economic growth in nineteenth century Prussia in order to help draw implications for the modern roles of institutions. To measure landlord power, we use three measures of feudal landlordship: landowner concentration, servant population share, and household‐servant population share. These proxies, measured in 1816, are associated with both faster regional population growth and agricultural productivity growth, but no impact on industrialization in the early nineteenth century. However, in the latter nineteenth century, these same proxies are associated with delayed industrialization and no influence on regional population. Thus, stronger feudal landlordship was beneficial to regional growth when agriculture was the dominant industry but became detrimental to growth when manufacturing became dominant.