Browsing by Subject "Industrielle Revolution"

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Savings banks and the industrial revolution in Prussia : supporting regional development with public financial institutions
(2017) Wahl, Fabian; Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle
We show that smaller, regional public financial intermediaries significantly contributed to industrial development, using a new data set of the foundation year and location of Prussian savings banks. This extends the banking-growth nexus beyond its traditional focus on the large universal banks, to savings banks. The saving banks had an impact through the financing of public infrastructure, such as railways, and new private factories. Saving banks were public financial intermediaries, so our results strongly suggest that state intervention can be very successful, particularly in regions in the early stages of industrial development when capital requirements are manageable, and access to international capital markets is limited.
The scientific revolution and its role in the transition to sustained economic growth
(2020) Tscheuschner, Paul; Lehmann-Hasemeyer, Sibylle; Prettner, Klaus
We propose a Unified Growth model that analyzes the role of the Scientific Revolution in the takeoff to sustained modern economic growth. Basic scientific knowledge is a necessary input in the production of applied knowledge, which, in turn, fuels productivity growth and leads to rising incomes. Eventually, rising incomes instigate a fertility transition and a takeoff of educational investments and human capital accumulation. In regions where scientific inquiry is severely constrained (for religious reasons or because of oppressive rulers), the takeoff to modern growth is delayed or might not occur at all. The novel mechanism that we propose for the latent transition towards the takeoff could contribute to our understanding of why sustained growth emerged first in Europe.