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Fifty Years of Urban Accessibility: The Impact of Urban Railway Network on the Land Gradient in Industrializing Berlin

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  • Gabriel Ahlfeldt
  • Nicolai Wendeland

Abstract

As the first to use an archival data set on historical land values of Berlin, Germany, from 1890 to 1936, we exploit exogenous variation in transport technology in order to test the validity of the monocentric city model. Endogenously determining the CBD, we conduct cross-section and time-difference analysis and model the land gradient in terms of straight-line distance and travel times. A counterfactual scenario indicates that a large proportion of urban decentralization is attributable to improvements in transport infrastructure. Controlling for spatial dependency, results suggest that the monocentric model fitted the city structure until the mid 20th century.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriel Ahlfeldt & Nicolai Wendeland, 2008. "Fifty Years of Urban Accessibility: The Impact of Urban Railway Network on the Land Gradient in Industrializing Berlin," KOF Working papers 08-208, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
  • Handle: RePEc:kof:wpskof:08-208
    DOI: 10.3929/ethz-a-005705229
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    5. Franziska K. Kruse & Wolfgang Maennig, 2019. "Yellow Cards and Suspension by Choice: Determinants and Asymmetries," Working Papers 064, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Transport Innovations; Land Values; Location Productivity; Economic History;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N7 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services
    • N9 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History
    • R33 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Nonagricultural and Nonresidential Real Estate Markets
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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