Economic geography aspects of the Panama Canal

Maurer, Stephan Ernst ORCID: 0000-0003-2446-8575 and Rauch, Ferdinand (2019) Economic geography aspects of the Panama Canal. CEP Discussion Papers (CEPDP1633). London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.

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Abstract

This paper studies how the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 changed market access and influenced the economic geography of the United States. We compute shipment distances with and without the canal from each US county to each other US county and to key international ports and compute the resulting change in market access. We relate this change to population changes in 20-year intervals from 1880 to 2000. We find that a 1 percent increase in market access led to a total increase of population by around 6 percent. We compute similar elasticities for wages, land values and immigration from out of state. When we decompose the effect by industry, we find that tradable (manufacturing) industries react faster than non-tradable (services), with a fairly similar aggregate effect.

Item Type:	Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL:	https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion...
Additional Information:	© 2019 The Authors
Divisions:	Centre for Macroeconomics Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
JEL classification:	F - International Economics > F1 - Trade R - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics > R1 - General Regional Economics O - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development N - Economic History > N7 - Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, Technology, and Other Services > N72 - U.S.; Canada: 1913-
Date Deposited:	14 Feb 2020 11:12
Last Modified:	05 Mar 2024 16:12
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/103391

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