IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/kyklos/v72y2019i1p3-28.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urbanisation and Agricultural Productivity: Why Did the Splendour of the Italian Cities in the Sixteenth Century Not Lead to Transition?

Author

Listed:
  • Bruno Chiarini
  • Elisabetta Marzano

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the relationships among total population, wages and the urban population in the Italian economy during the period 1320‐1870. From the late Middle Ages to the Early Modern age (the Italian Renaissance), the prevailing conditions were those of a poor, mainly agricultural economy with rudimentary technology. However, these centuries witnessed considerable growth of urban centres. The question that drives this paper is why the development of Italian cities in the sixteenth century did not lead to sustained growth. Using a vector autoregression (VAR) model, we provide a picture of a trapped economy in which urbanisation was unable to trigger a persistent process of development because migration to cities had negative consequences for rural marginal productivity. The demand for a young and healthy labour force from the urban sector was not adequately supported by the productivity of the agricultural sector, which suffered from a lack of technological innovation.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruno Chiarini & Elisabetta Marzano, 2019. "Urbanisation and Agricultural Productivity: Why Did the Splendour of the Italian Cities in the Sixteenth Century Not Lead to Transition?," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(1), pages 3-28, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:72:y:2019:i:1:p:3-28
    DOI: 10.1111/kykl.12192
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12192
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/kykl.12192?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter Grajzl & Peter Murrell, 2023. "Of families and inheritance: law and development in England before the Industrial Revolution," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(3), pages 387-432, September.
    2. Kufenko, Vadim & Khaustova, Ekaterina & Geloso, Vincent, 2022. "Escape underway: Malthusian pressures in late imperial Moscow," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    3. Maja Pedersen & Claudia Riani & Paul Sharp, 2021. "Malthus in preindustrial Northern Italy?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 1003-1026, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:72:y:2019:i:1:p:3-28. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0023-5962 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.