出版社：Suntory Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines
摘要：This paper exploits the division of Germany after the Second World War and the re-unification of East and West Germany in 1990 as a natural experiment to provide evidenceof the importance of market access for economic development. In line with a standard neweconomic geography model, we find that following division cities in West Germany that wereclose to the new border between East and West Germany experienced a substantial decline inpopulation growth relative to other West German cities. We provide several pieces of evidencethat the decline of the border cities can be entirely accounted for by their loss in market accessand is neither driven by di.erences in industrial structure nor di.erences in the degree of warrelated destruction. Finally, we also find some first evidence of a recovery of the border citiesafter the re-unification of East and West Germany.
关键词：Market Access; Economic Geography; German Division; German Reunification
