Liberty, Fraternity, Equality and Industry: The

Economic Consequences of the French Revolution

Daron Acemoglu
MIT
Simon Johnson
MIT and IMF
James Robinson
Harvard
February 2006
Very Very Incomplete and Preliminary. Please Do Not Circulate.
Abstract
The French Revolution of 1789 had a momentous impact on neighboring countries. The
French Revolutionary armies during the 1790s invaded and controlled Belgium, the Nether-
lands, Italy, Switzerland, and parts of Germany, and Napoleon in the early 1800s extended
the French control over these territories and also conquered Spain. Together with invasion
came various radical institutional changes. Most notably, the French Revolution removed the
legal and economic barriers that had protected the privileged (nobility, clergy, and urban oli-
garchies), established the principle of equality before the law, and led to a reorganization of the
state. In this paper, we argue that the French Revolution can be considered an exogenously-
imposed institutional change on neighboring countries and we study its impact on economic
outcomes. We also use this experience to evaluate several central theses about institutions:
(1) that they eciently adapt to a societys characteristics, (2) that evolved institutions are
inherently superior to those rationally designed, (3) that institutions must be appropriate
and cannot be transplanted, and (4) the Civil Code has adverse economic eects. Both at the
country and the city level, the evidence suggests that areas that were occupied by the French
and that underwent radical institutional reform experienced somewhat more rapid economic
growth, urbanization and industrialization, especially after 1850, though in some specica-
tions the results are not statistically signicant and in some others, we nd slight pre-existing
trends. On the whole, the evidence is more consistent with the view that the institutional
reforms brought about by the French Revolution had long-run benecial eects and there-
fore militates against all four of the above theses. Our interpretation is that the Revolution
destroyed (the institutional underpinnings of) the power of oligarchies and elites opposed to
economic change, and combined with the arrival of new economic and industrial opportunities
in the second half of the 19th century, helped pave the way for future economic growth.
Keywords: institutions, civil code, guilds, democracy, oligarchy, political economy.
JEL Numbers: I10, O40, J11.

We thank Robert Dixon, Philip Homan, Joel Mokyr, Jesus Villaverde and participants in the American
Economic Association Annual Meeting for their comments, and Camilo Garca, Tarek Hassan and Jutta Hoppe
for excellent research assistance.
1
1 Introduction
In this paper we examine the economic impact of the French Revolution of 1789 on the rest of
Europe. This is a particularly interesting episode to study for at least two reasons.
First, the French Revolution provides an ideal example of a large change in institutions
during a critical period of European history, thus enabling us to investigate how the ancien
regime of many European nations and cities at the end of the 18th century were (or were
not) reformed, and how this aected the future growth potential of these economies. Before
invasion by the French Revolutionary armies or Napoleon, much of Europe was dominated
by large aristocratic landowners, the Church or by urban oligarchies and guilds; the peasants
and workers had no equality before the law, and in many cases, peasants were still tied to the
land by serfdom or were subject to quasi-feudal obligations; and the middle classes had no
representation in the political process. Part of the stated mandate of the French Revolution
was to change this political and economic system not only in France, but in all of Europe.
In many cases there were indeed important steps in this direction, including the abolition
of serfdom and aristocratic privileges in many areas of Europe, the conscation of the lands
of the Church, the removal of the power of the guilds, the abolition of sale of oces in the
judiciary and bureaucracy, and the introduction of a legal code emphasizing equality before
the law. A study of the eects of the French Revolution on neighboring countries and cities,
therefore, gives us an opportunity to investigate whether these radical political, economic and
legal reforms were eective and what their economic implications were in the decades that
followed.
Second, the impact of the French Revolution on the institutions of the world and its legacy
are still hotly debated, even though, to the best of our knowledge, a systematic empirical analy-
sis of its consequences has never been undertaken. The debate on French Revolution started in
its modern form by the pamphlet published by the conservative English philosopher Edmund
Burke in 1790, entitled Reections on the Revolution in France. In this pamphlet, Burke con-
demned the brutality, the interventionist spirit and the radicalism of the French Revolution.
He argued that whilst the English Revolution of the previous century had emphasized liberty
and rights for the propertied middle classes, who could productively participate in the political
process, the French Revolution was bringing the worst elements of chaotic democracy, tyranny,
and a destructive spirit, tearing down the established regime without a viable alternative to
replace it. Consequently, Burke wrote:
1
It is with innite caution that any man should venture upon pulling down an
edice, which has answered in any tolerable degree for ages the common purposes of
society, or on building it up again without having models and patterns of approved
utility before his eyes.
The conclusion Burke drew from these events was that the negative impacts of the French
Revolution would be felt not only in France and not only in its immediate aftermath, but
would potentially change the world for many more decades or even centuries to come.
On the other side, the positive reception of the French Revolution was as enthusiastic as
Burkes condemnation. Thomas Paine, in a book that would subsequently become a classic for
the democratization movements of the 19th-century Europe, The Rights of Man, responded
to Burke. The essence of Paines argument was closely related to the reforms brought about
by the French Revolution; Paine hailed the French Revolution as the harbinger of freedom
and equality before the law, a role that it achieved by demolishing the ancien regime.
1
Paine
argued:
man has no property in men; neither has any generation a property in the gener-
ations that have to follow.
And he continued:
It was ... against the despotic principles of the government, that the nation
revolted. These principles had ... their origins ... in the original establishment,
many centuries back; and they were become too deeply rooted to be removed, and
the Augean stable of parasites and plunderers too abominably lthy to be cleansed,
by anything short of a complete and universal revolution.
According to Paine, the French Revolution was exactly the kind of radical institutional reform
necessary to break the hold on land and people exercised by the ancien regime, which was
not only morally abhorrent, but also the source of signicant economic ineciencies. The
Revolution would therefore pave the way for modern freedoms and democratic institutions by
removing serfdom, aristocratic privileges, the Churchs domination over politics and land, and
the inequity before the law.
1
Interestingly, Paine was tried and convicted for treason in his native England, because of his response to
Burkes pamphlet and never returned back there, instead settling in the United States. He was also ostracized
as too radical a thinker in America and died in poverty.
2
The debate between Burke and Paine has not been resolved by current research. Many
economic historians, like Landes (1969, p. 142), view the French Revolution as ...a political
roadblock... to technological adoption for Continental countries, and conclude that as a con-
sequence of the Revolution, ...the gap in technique [between the Continent and Britain] had
widened, while most of the fundamental educational, economic, and social obstacles to imita-
tion remained (Landes, 1969, p. 147). Similarly, Buyst and Mokyr (1990, p. 64, 74) write:
it is our contention ... that the Dutch economy in the years of the French and Napoleonic
Wars was another example of a small open commercial economy whose prosperity was dis-
rupted by world events ... The French period ... [was] disastrous for the Dutch economy.
Crouzets (2001, p. 121) view is similar, noting the French Revolution and the wars that
followed greatly slowed the transfer of technology. On the other hand, many other economic
historians also agree with Mokyrs assessments that the Revolutions long-term eect was
to clear up the debris of the ancient regime on the Continent, thus assuring Europes ability
eventually to follow Britain in revolutionizing its productive system (1990, p. 259), and that
the French Revolution and Napoleon installed more forward looking governments in Europe
(1990, p. 253) (see also Crouzet, 2001, p. 122, Cameron,1993, pp. 211-213). Even Landes,
who generally emphasizes the negative eects of the Revolution, also mentions in passing that
such institutional changes as the abolition of guilds were benecial (1969, pp. 144-145).
2
Perhaps more importantly, the debate between Burke and Paine persistently recurs in
modern debates on the role of institutions and institutional change. A dominant paradigm
in economics maintains that institutions eciently adapt to the underlying characteristics of
society (e.g., Demsetz, 1967). If this is true, then enforced institutional change will often
reduce prosperity. The impact of the French Revolution on much of Europe is reminiscent
of a quasi-natural experiment where institutions were changed in a way orthogonal to such
underlying characteristics, and any benecial eects of such institutional change would be evi-
dence against this view. Second, following Hayek (1960), it is common to viewinstitutions that
have evolved over time as superior to those which are created by rational design or outside
reform. Third, and related, many authors suggest that institutions must be appropriate
and cannot be eciently transplanted (e.g., Berkowitz, Pistor and Richard, 2003). Finally,
2
Most historians of the French Revolution also view the institutional reforms imposed by the French Rev-
olutionary armies and Napoleon as signicant improvements relative to the situation at the time. See, for
example, Rude (1964), Kisch (1962), Trebilcock (1981), Doyle (1989), or Grab (2003), though none of these
works systematically investigates the economic consequences of the Revolution either in the short run or in the
long run.
3
much recent research has suggested that French institutions, particularly the Civil Code trans-
planted throughout Europe so vigorously by Napoleon, has adverse eects for institutional and
economic development (e.g., LaPorta et al., 1998). The imposition of French institutions and
the Civil Code by the Revolution and Napoleon provides us with an opportunity to investigate
these ideas.
We therefore investigate the economic and institutional implications of the French Revolu-
tion both to shed light on the Revolutions long-run legacy and use this as a way of evaluating
some important hypotheses about institutions and development. Our empirical approach is to
study the impact of the French Revolution on countries and cities, conquered by the French
Revolutionary armies and subsequently by Napoleon.
3
These countries and cities did not
choose the French institutions, but those institutions were imposed on them rst by the Revo-
lution.
4
Therefore, to a rst approximation, we can think of the imposition of the institutions
of the French Revolution as an exogenous treatment.
5
Territorial expansion by French Revolutionary armies had two major objectives. The rst
was defensive, especially, in response to the threat of Austrian or Prussian (or later English)
attempts to topple the Revolutionary regime. The second was expansionary. This was partly
because of resource needs of the French Republic, and partly because of the ideology of the
French Revolution. As one of the early leaders of the Revolution, Marquis de Lafayette, argued,
the Revolution was a template for institutional change for the rest of the world in general and
for Europe in particular. In a speech delivered to the American Congress, Lafayette stated:
May this great monument, raised to Liberty, serve as a lesson to the oppressor, and an example
to the oppressed! (quoted in Paine). In addition, in the early 1790s, the French sought to
establish Frances natural frontiers.
6
3
Napoleon invaded and temporarily occupied most of western continental Europe, but in many places, his
reign was limited and involved few important reforms. Below, we discuss dierent ways of treating areas briey
invaded by Napoleon.
4
In most cases, there were local Jacobin forces in the countries invaded by the French armies, but the presence
of such forces did not play a major role in determining which counties and cities were invaded by the French.
See, for example, Doyle (1989, Chapter 9).
5
Naturally, the fact that these institutions were imposed by the French is not enough to make the treatment
econometrically exogenous, and we also need that treated and untreated places were otherwise similar (e.g., on
similar trajectories in terms of economic growth). Much of the empirical work below will investigate whether
or not this is so.
6
For example, the Revolutionary leader George Danton stated: Les limites de la France sont marquees
par la nature, nous les atteindrons des quatre coins de lhorizon, du cote du Rhin, du cote de lOcean, du
cote des Alpes. La, doivent nir les bornes de notre republique." (speech to National Convention, January 31,
1793; quoted in Blanning 1983, p. 2). Grab (2003, p. 1) summarizes these motives and arguments as: The
revolutionary governments justied the occupation of foreign lands, using the theory of natural frontiers and
4
The Revolutionary armies, starting in the 1790s, invaded Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzer-
land, Italy and western parts of Germany. In all of these cases, they brought abrupt change
in economic and legal institutions and the organization of the state. Where the Revolution-
ary armies started, Napoleon followed. He consolidated and to some extent expanded on the
earlier gains, particularly by adding satellite states in Germany. As Grab (2003, p. xi) puts
it: Revolutionary France had initiated many of these changes and Napoleon exported them
throughout Europe. Napoleon himself saw the most important reform he introduced in the
areas he controlled was the imposition of the Civil Code (Code Napoleon) (Lyons, 1994, p. 94).
The areas invaded by the French Revolutionary forces, with control and institutional change
later consolidated by Napoleon, were previously under the control of rural oligarchies consisting
of the aristocracy and the clergy, or of urban oligarchies consisting of long-established families
and guilds. The French intervention largely destroyed these established oligarchies and the
institutional underpinnings of their power, removed feudal privileges, and abolished guilds. For
example, the decree of August 4th, 1789, abolished feudalism in France, removed aristocratic
privileges (such as exemption from taxation), prohibited the sale of oces in the judiciary and
bureaucracy and opened these positions to all citizens. The constitution of September 1791, in
turn, removed a range of guild restrictions, and eliminated customs on goods transported within
the country. These institutions were forcibly exported to other countries over the next 20 or so
years. Napoleons preferred institutions were not identical to those of the early revolutionaries,
but they were nonetheless related.
7
Our empirical strategy to assessed the long-run economic implications of the French Revo-
lution is to classify countries and cities into treated and untreated depending on whether
they were invaded by the Revolutionary armies and/or by Napoleon,
8
and then look for po-
tentially divergent the economic trajectories of these dierent areas using available data on
urbanization, GDP and industrial production. One obvious diculty is that the imposition
of new institutions came together with French invasion, thus with the disruptions of war and
sometimes the taxes that the French imposed in these new territories. In fact, much evidence
declaring their intention or liberating oppressed people from tyrannical regimes.
7
As discussed below, Napoleon was also much more likely to enter into alliances with local oligarchies, which
is perhaps not surprising given that he ran France rst as a dictator and then as an emperor, quite opposed to
the original republican principles of the Revolution. At some level, whether institutional reforms undertaken
under the auspices of the Revolution versus those of Napoleon were similar and which ones had more positive
eect on economic outcomes are empirical questions. Our empirical results, if anything, suggest that the eects
of reforms imposed by the French Revolutionary armies were, in the long run, more benecial than those of
Napoleon.
8
We experiment with various dierent ways of classifying countries and cities briey occupied by Napoleon.
5
suggests that the French invasion was often quite destructive and exploitative (see, for example,
Blanning, 1983, 1986). Grab (2003, p. 1), for example, writes ...the French armies requisi-
tioned provisions and imposed heavy war contributions of occupied regions, thereby alienating
their populations. Thus, the short-term impact of French invasion may have been negative,
and in any case, should be viewed as the outcome of multiple factors, many of them related
to the disruption of the war economy. It is therefore unlikely that these short-term changes
could be informative about the impact of Revolution-imposed institutional changes. Moreover,
it is improbable that the Revolution had a major eect on agriculture. For example, Homan
(1996, p. 193) argues, for the French case, The weight of the seigneurial system was often
light, ..., and the village community was not the major obstacle to economic growth in agricul-
ture, and the same appears to have been the case in the Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland,
and the Rhineland, areas rst conquered by the French Revolutionary armies (e.g., Blanning,
1983).
Instead, our working hypothesis is that the institutional changes brought about by the
French Revolution should have encouraged industrialization and economic growth in later
decades. As noted, this is line with the part of the economic history literature that has seen
the institutional changes wrought by the Revolutionary armies as part of the prerequisites for
economic growth. Even though in this period European countries were not much poorer than
Britain, as argued in Engerman and Sokolo (1997), Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2002)
and Acemoglu (2003), societies with and without oligarchic institutions may have signicantly
divergent economic fortunes when these institutional dierences interact with new economic
opportunities, such as industrialization. This is particularly likely to be the case since the
traditional urban and rural oligarchies would have slowed down the adoption of new technolo-
gies by creating entry barriers (Acemoglu, 2003) or even would have attempted to block them
(Acemoglu and Robinson, 2006b) in order to protect their economic and political rents. The
age of industry for Continental Europe was the second half of the 19th century. This reasoning
suggests that we may nd a signicant eect of the institutional reforms brought about by the
French Revolution during the age of industry, that is, in the second half of the 19th century.
For this reason, our main empirical strategy is to look for dierences between treated and un-
treated countries or cities starting around 1850. We treat the decades before 1850 (depending
on data set between 1750 and 1830) as pre-periods, useful to test for dierential pre-existing
trends between treated and untreated areas.
6
The empirical evidence, by and large, suggests that countries and cities that underwent
the radical institutional reforms of the French Revolution grew faster between 1850 and 1913
than the untreated countries and cities. In the country-level dataset, areas invaded by the
French were already richer to start with, but the gap opened up signicantly after 1850 (and
interestingly not much before 1850). In the German city level data, when we limit ourselves to
the west of the Elbe to create a relatively homogeneous group of cities, those that underwent
radical reform were no more prosperous before 1800 (as measured by log urban population
of the cities), but started to grow faster around 1820s, and by 1850, they had overtaken the
untreated cities.
This evidence has to be interpreted with caution for a number of reasons. First, the
quality of the data available to us is not very high. Second (and perhaps relatedly) some
specications lead to imprecise and sometimes insignicant results. Third, our results are
somewhat stronger when we focus on countries and cities conquered by the French Revolution
than areas invaded by Napoleon. Fourth, in the city-level specications, we cannot rule out
pre-existing trends. And nally, the evidence does not enable us to distinguish between the
eects of various subcomponents of the reforms imposed by the Revolution (e.g., abolition of
serfdom vs. abolition of guilds, equality before the law vs. Civil Code).
Nevertheless, all in all, the evidence is very clear that the totality of the institutional reforms
brought about by the French Revolution did not have any negative long-run eects, and our
reading of the evidence suggests that these reforms, most likely, had signicant benecial
eects on long-run economic growth. Even though the nature of the evidence does not allow
us to distinguish which of the various reforms was the crucial one, it does support the idea
that these institutional reforms created an environment conducive to economic growth, which,
interacting with the arrival of new industrial opportunities in the second half of the 19th
century, enabled these areas to achieve faster economic growth. It is also interesting to note
that in this interpretation, the purpose of the institutional reforms of the French Revolution
was not to foster industrialization per se, but it did achieve this objective as a by-product of
its major goal of destroying the hold of the aristocracy, oligarchy, and the clergy on political
and economic power.
9
9
It is unlikely that the reforms were made specically to encourage industrial growth. Most likely, no one
at the turn of the nineteenth century could have anticipated the new technologies that were to arrive a few
decades later. The exception to this statement is textiles. By 1800 the British and others had established
some new technologies that increased productivity (e.g., in spinning) by an order of magnitude. Textiles are an
important part of the story in the Rhineland, discussed below, but there is no evidence that the French changed
7
If robust, this evidence leads to four conclusions. Most immediate, our ndings weighs on
the side of the economic historians who have emphasized the positive eects of the Revolution;
there is no evidence of a negative medium-run or long-run eect of institutions imposed by
the French Revolution on neighboring countries or cities. The remaining conclusions illustrate
the implications of this nding for current debates about institutions and development. First,
this nding provides direct evidence against the thesis that institutions are eciently adapted
to the underlying characteristics of a society. The French Revolutionary armies imposed new
institutions which led to improved economic performance. Second, it argues against the su-
periority of institutions which evolve rather that those that are created by rational design;
this implies that institutions can be reformed and improved. Third and relatedly, it suggests
that institutions can be transplanted with benecial eects, even when they pay little heed
to the existing status quo. Finally, the evidence provides no support for the notion that the
Civil Code has deleterious eects, at least in comparison to the types of legal systems that
it replaced. These ndings are interesting for those who favor institutional reforms. They
suggest these may be needed and feasible.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 provides a rst glance at the
evidence by visually depicting the broad patterns of dierential growth between counties and
cities whose institutions were changed by the French Revolution and Napoleon versus the rest.
Section 3 provides an overview of the history of the French Revolution and the invasion of
Europe by French Revolutionary armies and by Napoleon based on secondary sources. Section 4
discusses our data, both with regard to how we classify dierent countries and cities into treated
and untreated groups, and also the nature of our outcome measures: industrial production,
urbanization, and GDP. Section 5 provides country-level regression evidence investigating the
pattern shown in Section 2 in greater detail, while Section 6 looks at the dierences in the
growth experience of treated and untreated German cities. Section 7 provides an interpretation
for the empirical evidence provided in the paper in view of our reading of the history of the
period, and Section 8 concludes.
2 The French Revolution and European Development at a Glance
In this section, we show the main patterns of divergent urbanization, industrial production per
capita, and GDP per capita across countries and log urban population across cities treated and
institutions in the Rhineland specically because they foresaw great potential in the manufacture of cloth.
8
untreated by the French Revolution (and Napoleon). In Sections 5 and 6, our rst specication
will consider countries and cities invaded by the French Revolutionary armies as treated, while
our second specication adds areas controlled by Napoleon. In this section, for brevity, we only
show the patterns for the second specication, which includes areas controlled by Napoleon
(see Section 4 for more details).
Data on economic activity in this period are far from complete, but we have information
at the country-level on urbanization (from Bairoch, 1988), GDP per capita (Maddison, 2003),
on industrialization (from Bairoch, 1982), as well as information on city populations (from
Bairoch, Batou and Chevre, 1988). As argued in Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2002
and 2005a), the urbanization rate (percent of population living in towns with at least 5,000
inhabitants) is potentially the best available measure of economic prosperity in the pre-modern
period, since it was related both to agricultural productivity and to industrialization, the two
major determinants of economic growth during this time period, and there is fairly good data
on urbanization throughout Europe. We use Maddisons (2003) GDP per capita estimates,
which are often educated guesses, as a check on the urbanization numbers. Although Bairoch
and Maddisons numbers generally agree, there is some disagreement about the pace of eco-
nomic progress in Italy, which we discussed in greater detail in Section 4. Finally, we use
data from Bairoch (1982) on industrial output per capita. Although these data are also no
more than educated guesses, they are informative for our purposes, since, in our hypothesis,
industrialization is the main channel of inuence of the changes in institutions.
In addition to these country-level and city-level data, we have gathered information on
which countries and cities were invaded by the French Revolutionary armies and occupied by
Napoleon from various historical sources as discussed in Section 4 and the Data Appendix.
Our basic coding classies all countries and cities invaded by the French Revolutionary armies
and those occupied by Napoleon for an extended period as those having undergone radical
institutional change, and refer to those as treated.
10
We refer to the rest as untreated.
Leaving a detailed discussion of the construction of the data and some of the diculties with
classifying counties and cities to that section, here we simply show the major patterns.
Figure 1A shows the evolution of urbanization rate (percent of population living in towns
with at least 5,000 inhabitants) between treated and untreated countries. Already in 1750, the
treated countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain have higher
10
In the regression analysis in Section 5, we report results with the treated group being those invaded by the
French Revolutionary armies as well as those invaded by the French Revolutionary armies and by Napoleon.
9
urbanization rate according to Bairoch (1988) than the untreated group, which includes Aus-
tria, Britain, the Czech country, Ireland, Hungary, Portugal, Scandinavia and the whole of
Eastern Europe, but this gap widens signicantly between 1800 and 1850. By 1913, there is
a large dierence in the urbanization rates between treated and untreated countries. The un-
treated sample includes fairly heterogeneous countries, at one extreme, Britain, which was the
institutional and industrial leader of Europe at the time,
11
and at the other, Eastern Europe,
which was relatively backward.
12
As an attempt to focus on a more homogeneous sample,
Figure 1B looks at the behavior of the urbanization rate among Western European countries
only (excluding Britain). The pattern is similar to that in Figure 1A and shows a signicant
divergence starting between 1800 and 1850, and signicantly widening by 1913. These gures
provide the strongest evidence that we have for a benecial long-run eect of the institutions
imposed by the French Revolution on prosperity.
Figures 2A-2C show the dierential evolution of the level and log of GDP per capita between
1500 and 1900 (more specically, for the dates we have data from Maddison, 2003, which are
1500, 1600, 1700, 1820, 1870, 1890 and 1900). Figure 2A is for the level of GDP per capita
and is also encouraging for the thesis that the institutional reforms imposed by the French
Revolution had a positive eect on long-run growth. There seems to be no pre-trend before
1820, and a signicant gap opens up starting in 1850. Since treated and untreated groups
start with dierent levels, proportional growth might make the interpretation of the pattern
in Figure 2A dicult, so in Figure 2B we show the same pattern for log GDP per capita. In
this case, the changes are less marked (and in the regression analysis, they will sometimes be
insignicant). Nevertheless, the gures suggest that the proportional growth rates of GDP per
capita between treated and untreated groups are essentially identical, or slightly faster for the
untreated group, until 1820, and thereafter, the treated group shows faster growth. Figure 2C
shows the same pattern for log GDP per capita for Western Europe (without the UK).
Finally, in Figures 3A-3C we look at Bairochs (1982) estimates of industrial production per
capita. Figure 3A is for the level of industrial production per capita for the whole sample, and
11
Britain was the frontier industrial country throughout this period, and, as argued in Acemoglu, Johnson and
Robinson (2005a), the combination of Atlantic trade and pre-existing institutions in Britain led to a political
regime highly supportive of industrialization. Therefore, Britain was not part of the potential group of countries
in the hold of an anti-industry landed or urban oligarchy.
12
Throughout this paper we take Eastern Europe to be those territorities with capitals to the east of Vienna,
i.e., the Czech country is included in Western Europe but Hungary is in Eastern Europe. All of Scandinavia
is part of Western Europe. This east-west division is a somewhat crude way to drop the (eastern) areas where
forms of feudalism were stronger in 1789.
10
shows a big divergence between treated and untreated countries starting from 1830, though
now there is a slight pre-trend up to 1830.
13
Figure 3B again looks at log changes and conrms
the same picture, with a slight pretend between 1830 and a signicant dierential growth gap
after 1830. Figure 3C shows the same pattern for log industrial production per capita for
Western Europe (without UK).
The patterns in these three gures suggest that the radical institutional changes imposed
by the French Revolution and Napoleon may have led to signicantly more rapid urbanization,
economic growth and industrialization. We interpret this evidence as suggestive, but not
conclusive, that the institutional changes imposed by the French Revolution and Napoleon
had a benecial eect, especially starting towards the second half of the 19th century. We will
see in Section 5 that these patterns are generally robust, though there are also specications in
which they lose statistical signicance. Another reason why we do not consider this evidence as
conclusive is that there were marked dierences in the level of urbanization, GDP per capita
and industrialization per capita between treated and untreated places. This prompts us to
look in greater detail to the eect of the French Revolution within Germany, where some cities
were aected by the French Revolution early on and radically, while others did not undergo
similar institutional changes for a variety of reasons (see Sections 3 and 4).
To gauge the level of prosperity of a city, we follow the strategy in Acemoglu, Johnson and
Robinson (2005a) and use the logarithm of population in a city as a proxy for its prosperity (see
Section 4 for details). In the case of Germany, our baseline specication limits the sample to
cities to the west of the Elbe, since the east of this river was possibly more backward at the time
(see, for example, Blum, 1978). Figure 4A shows the patterns in this case. We now see that
treated cities start with lower log urban population in 1700 and remain below the untreated
cities until 1818 (though showing somewhat faster growth between 1700 and 1800 and slower
growth between 1800 and 1818).
14
From 1850 onwards, the treated have higher average log
urban population and appear to be more prosperous. Figure 4B shows the same pattern for
13
Whether 1830 should be considered as a treatment or a pre-treatment here is unclear in theory, since it
is before the second half of the 19th century, though some industrialization was already underway in much of
Europe around that time and the immediate disruptive eects of French invasion were long gone by this date.
14
The treated cities in these graphs are those that were under the control of Napoleon. These were in the
area of northern Germany annexed to France (including Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck), the Rhineland (also
annexed to France), and the duchies or kingdoms of Frankfurt, Nassau, Hesse-Darmstadt, Berg, and Westphalia.
The precise degree of French control over Frankfurt is controversial, and in our regression analysis we conrm
that our results remain essentially unchanged if these are coded as untreated or dropped from the analysis.
Moreover, as noted above, we experiment both with using cities west of the Elbe and all German cities as the
untreated group.
11
the whole of Germany. In the case of Germany, there is more controversy about which cities
were most aected by the French Revolution and Napoleon, both because the brief occupation
by Napoleon of certain cities, the creation of satellite republics, and defensive modernization
in Prussia. For this reason, in Section 6, we experiment with a number of dierent codings and
robustness checks, which generally indicate that the patterns shown in Figure 4 are robust.
Overall, the city-level evidence has both advantages and disadvantages. Contrary to the
country-level evidence, the treated group starts below the untreated, and by 1913 (in fact by
1850) has overtaken the untreated citiesthus displaying a pattern of reversal. However,
there is also dierential growth before the treatment in the city-level data (a pattern which we
did not nd much evidence for in the country-level gures). On balance, our interpretation is
that at the city-level, as in the country level, the institutional changes induced by the French
Revolution, by removing the grip of the aristocracy, clergy and the guilds, had a benecial
eect on economic growth, but the presence of pre-existing trends make it impossible for us to
be completely condent that this is the case.
3 The Eect of the French Revolution on Europe
In this section, we provide a brief history of the French Revolution and the situation in various
neighboring countries and cities before the Revolution. We also recount how expansion by the
French Revolutionary armies and later by Napoleon aected these areas.
3.1 Brief History of French Revolution
15
By the standards of its day, the France of 1789 was prosperous and peaceful. In the subsequent
two decades, however, it experienced perhaps the most momentous events of the modern era,
with a revolution that would transform not only France but the entire continent of Europe.
The French monarchy had acquired a considerable amount of political power, particularly
under Louis XIV, while economic and political rights were highly unequally distributed. Many
economic privileges remained from medieval times (e.g., exemption from central government
taxation and the right to impose local dues, taxes and taris). At the same time, peasants
and wage earners, by and large, lived in relative poverty.
Although the monarchy and the First Estate (the nobility), and to a large extent the
Second Estate (the clergy), lived in relative luxury and prosperity, the state had been pressed
15
This section draws heavily on Doyle (1989), Palmer (1971) and Rude (1988).
12
for income for a long time, with the scal crisis becoming more serious towards the end of
the 18th century. A number of signicant gures attempted to balance the royal budget by
restructuring the debt and increasing taxes, and among them were included Jacques Turgot,
the famous economist of the time, Jacques Necker, who would also play an important role
after the revolution, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne, but none succeeded. Calonne, as part
of his strategy, convinced the King Louis XVI to summon the Assembly of Notables, which
was supposed to endorse a set of scal reforms. And yet, this assembly concluded that only
a representative body, the Estates-General, including all three estates (the nobility, the clergy
and the rest), would be able to endorse such reforms. The Estates-General, which was last
convened in 1614, were gathered in 1789, with Necker again in charge of Frances nances.
However, from the beginning, the Estates-General was marred by irreconcilable dierences,
especially about how many votes the Third Estate should possess. The bourgeoisie, consisting
of professionals, merchants and artisans, was the main group represented in the Third Estate,
and by now, it was demanding more power. The meeting of the Estates-General in Versailles
on May 5, 1789 thus ended without a successful resolution, except the decision to convene a
more powerful body, the National Assembly.
The National Assembly, however, led to further radicalization of the Third Estate, which
demanded more say in the proceedings and greater rights in general. Their domination, with
some support from the clergy and nobility, but most signicantly from non-noble and non-clergy
all over the country, led to the reconstitution of the assembly as the National Constituent
Assembly on July 9. The mood in the country and especially in Paris was becoming more
radical. In reaction, the conservative circles around the King convinced him to sack Necker.
This led to further protests in the streets, with provocation convincing the populace that a
royal coup was underway. The outcome was the famous storming of the Bastille on July 14,
1789. From this point onwards, the Revolution had started. Necker was reinstated and the
revolutionary Marquis de Lafayette was put in charge of the National Guard of Paris.
More remarkable events were to follow from the National Constituent Assembly, with its
newfound condence. On August 4, 1789, it abolished feudalism, and together with it all of
the special privileges and rights of the First and Second Estates. This was followed by the
abolition of the Churchs authority to levy special taxes, and later turning the clergy into
employees of the state, thus starting the process of the separation of church and state.
Nevertheless, National Constituent Assembly did not manage to solve the French scal
13
problems, and this led to further radicalization and fractionalization within the assembly. The
rst step was the formation of local clubs, most notably the Jacobin club, which would later
take control of the revolution. At the same time, the nobles were turning against the Revolution
in greater numbers, either eeing the country (the migrs) or encouraging the King to break
with the assembly and take action, either by himself or with the help of foreign powers, such as
Austria (the Queen Marie Antoinettes native country). National Constituent Assembly nally
managed to pass a constitution on September 29, 1791, turning France into a constitutional
monarchy, essentially a regime in which the King had little role. This constitution also removed
the major power of the guilds in the cities, creating a much more level playing eld as far as
most occupations and industries were concerned.
The pace of institutional change was set further by war between France and Austria (and
its allies), which was viewed as the counter-revolutionary force, harboring the migrs that
had ed from the revolution and ultimately waiting for the opportune moment to declare war
against the new French Republic. Fueled by the radicalism of the masses (the sans-culottes)
in the streets whose aspirations had been raised by the Revolution and the process of war,
this process culminated in the execution of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and then later to the
period of Terror, which would witness the execution of many of the leaders of the Revolution
itself, including Brissot, Danton, Desmoulins, Sabre, Chabot, Robespierre, Saint-Just.
The execution of Robespierre and Saint-Just in July 1794 signaled the end of the Terror,
and there followed a phase of relative stability, rst in the form of collective government under
the Directory between 1795 and 1799, and then with more concentrated power in the form of a
three person Consulate, consisting of Ducos, Sieyes and Napoleon Bonaparte. Already during
the directory, the young general Napoleon Bonaparte had become famous for his military
successes and also for his statesmanship in ensuing negotiations. His inuence was only to
grow after 1799. The Consulate soon became the personal rule by Napoleon, who initially had
himself elected First Consul in November 1799 with the famous coup of the 18th of Brumaire
and then had himself declared emperor in 1804. The years between 1799 and the end of
Napoleons reign, 1815, witnessed a series of great victories, including those at Austerlitz,
Jena-Auerstadt, and Wagram, bringing continental Europe to its knees. They also allowed
Napoleon to impose his will (and his legal Code) across a wide swath of territory.
14
3.2 Europe Before the Revolution
Before the age of the French Revolution, much of Europe was dominated by two kinds of oli-
garchies, the landed nobility in agriculture and the urban-based oligarchy controlling commerce
and various occupations, with explicit or implicit entry barriers.
By the end of the eighteenth century, feudalism in its most rigid form was abolished in many
parts of Europe, but a lot of its remnants remained. The most important aspect of feudalism,
serfdomthe system through which peasants are tied to the land and cannot sell their labor
in free markets or engage in other occupations without the permission of landownersstill
continued in parts of Europe, especially in the East, while it was replaced by various forms
of taxes and tributes to landowners in other areas, which could nonetheless be quite onerous.
Even in the west of Europe, however, quasi-feudal arrangements were quite common. For
example, in the Rhineland, the rst area in Germany to come under French control, a form
of serfdom was still practiced. Blanning (1983, pp. 20-21) describes this as: In some areas
[of the Rhineland], where an attenuated version of serfdom still lingered, the peasant was also
subject to restrictions on his movement. Grab (2003, p. 86) states: Their conditions were
worse east of the Elbe where serfdom still prevailed. But even in many western regions where
serfdom had declined and peasants were freer and better o, they were often still subject to
landlords to whom they owed seigneurial fees and labor obligations. In addition they had to
pay taxes and support their parishes and village communities.
Even when serfdom in its classic form was absent, various rights of the nobility and clergy
created a very unequal political and economic situation in rural areas. These groups were
frequently exempt from taxation by the state, and as noted above, enjoyed the right of taxation
of the peasants under their control. Lenger (2004, p. 92), for example, describes this as:
besides the original obligations to provide services and dues to the lord the agricultural labor
force was also burdened with personal servitude. He continues:
In the small territory of Nassau-Usingen around 1800 there were no less than 230
dierent payments, dues, and services that the peasants living there had to provide
to the lords. Dues included ... the blood tithe to be paid after an animal was
slaughtered, a bee tithe, a wax tithe .. as well as large fees owed to the lord
whenever a piece of property changed hands. (Lenger, 2004, p. 96).
Moreover, in places where some form of seigneurial privilege remained, it was usual for nobility
15
and clergy to be subject to dierent laws and courts. The principle of equality before the law
was quite alien (or even revolutionary) in most of Europe in 1789.
The urban oligarchy was perhaps even more pernicious to industrialization. Almost all
major occupations were controlled by guilds, signicantly limiting entry into those professions
by others, but also indirectly restricting adoption of new technologies. The guilds are com-
monly blamed for the lack of adoption of new technologies throughout Europe. For example,
Cipolla (1970) argues that the guilds stopped innovation in Italy, in particular they forbid
the production of exactly the type of lower quality goods that were taking their markets. In
Venice (p. 206) for almost the whole of the 17th century, the statutes of the guild prevented
cloth from being made of the English and Dutch type, which had had so much success on the
international markets. Moreover, the guild statutes not only demanded the production of a
traditional type of goods, but also prevented the adoption of new methods of making these
old products. Braudel (1992, p. 136) discussing Venice also argues that decline began when
the prosperity of the [guilds]... faced with the competition from northern cloth, was compro-
mised by the high wages which its artisans refused to forego and Rapp (1976) makes similar
points. Kisch (1989) argues the same point for Rhineland, in particular, for the major cities of
Cologne and Aachen, where the adoption of new textile (spinning and weaving) machines were
signicantly delayed because of guild restrictions. In addition, many cities were controlled by
a few families for many generations, amassing wealth at the expense of potential new entrants
with greater ability or better technologies. Berne, for example, was controlled by 68 families
(Grab, 2003), while Florence is famous for its (competing) oligarchs.
3.3 Under the Republic
Despite the fact that the French Revolution was immediately seen as threatening to Europes
elite, war, the so-called War of the First Coalition, did not break out until 1792.
16
Contrary
to almost everyones expectations, after some early defeats, the armies of the new Republic
were victorious in an initially defensive war. There were serious organizational problems to
overcome, but particularly after the introduction of mass conscription (the leve en masse) in
August 1793, the French had a military advantage than verged on supremacy (even before it
was combined with Napoleons generalship).
16
The initial reaction in European capitals was amazement but there was no perceived need to intervene.
This changed with the execution of Louis XVI. See Doyle (1989) for general background and Blanning (1986)
for a more detailed treatment. Esdaile (1995, 2001) and Ellis (2003) are succinct overviews of all of the wars
from 1792 to 1815, while the series of Blanning (1996) and Gates (1997) provide more details.
16
Initial military success encouraged the Republics leadership to expand Frances borders,
with an eye towards creating an eective buer between the new Republic and the hostile
monarchs of Prussia and Austria. The French quickly seized the Austrian Netherlands (roughly
todays Belgium) and the Netherlands (where ice famously allowed French cavalry to capture a
large part of the Dutch navy). The French also gained eective control over much of modern-
day Switzerland. In all three places, French had strong control through the 1790s.
Germany was initially hotly contested (with Prussia reclaiming control in 1793). But by
1795 the French had rm control over the Rhineland (the west or left bank of the Rhine), and
the Prussians were forced to recognize this fact under the Treaty of Basle.
17
Between 1795 and
1802, the French rmly held the Rhineland, but not any other part of Germany. In 1802 the
Rhineland was ocially incorporated into France.
Italy remained the main seat of war in the second half the 1790s, with the Austrians as
the main opponents. Savoy was annexed by France in 1792, and a stalemate was reached
until Napoleons invasion in April 1796. In his rst major continental campaign, by early 1797
Napoleon had swept up almost all of Northern Italy, except for Venice (which was taken by
the Austrians). The Treaty of Campo Formio, signed with the Austrians in October 1797,
ended the War of the First Coalition and recognized a number of French-controlled republics
in Northern Italy.
However, the French continued to expand their control over Italy even after this treaty.
In March 1798 the French invaded the Papal States and established the Roman Republic.
Piedmont was occupied in December 1798. In January 1799, Naples was conquered and the
Parthenopean Republic created.
18
With the exception of Venice (still Austrian), the French
now controlled the entire Italian peninsular either directly (Savoy) or through satellite republics
(Cisalpine, Ligurian, Roman, and Parthenopean). There was further back-and-forth in the War
of the Second Coalition (1798-1801), but this ended with the French essentially remaining in
control. By 1802, the French commanded all of Italy except the Papal States, Naples, and
Venice.
17
Part of the broader 1795 Peace of Basle with Prussia, Spain, and Hessen-Kassel.
18
The Parthenopean Republic was short-lived, but the French were soon back andunder Napoleonseem to
have had a great impact on some institutions in the south of Italy, on which see Davis (1991, 2003) or Gregory
(2001).
17
3.4 Institutional Changes Induced by the Revolutionary Armies
Many of the most radical institutional changes were undertaken during the invasion of the
French Revolutionary armies. This included the abolition of all the remaining vestiges of
serfdom and quasi-feudal land relations, the hold of the clergy over economic and political
power, the domination of the guilds in urban areas, and legal changes establishing equality
before the law.
In Belgium (approximately the Austrian Netherlands - Lige area was under an indepen-
dent Bishop) The clergy and the nobility, the two upper estates, enjoyed many privileges
and possessed considerable wealth and political power... Urban guilds and corporations, the
dominant element in the Third Estate, also possessed important privileges and controlled the
towns (Grab 2003, p. 75). The Estates General did not meet between 1634 and 1790. After
some upheaval, France annexed Belgium in 1795 and ruled for 20 years. Equality before the
law was established and seigneurial rights, the tithe, noble privileges, and the guilds were abol-
ished; in fact, from December 1796, any new French legislation became applicable in Belgium
(Grab 2003, p. 78).
In the Netherlands (or United Provinces), the existing institutions were more those of en-
trenched urban oligarchies in the various cities. These oligarchies were eectively expropriated
by the French and, after considerable upheaval, the Batavian Republic was established along
French lines (Grab, 2003, Chapter 4).
In Switzerland, the situation was similar to the Netherlands. Before 1789, Feudal priv-
ileges persisted in many rural communities. Peasants owed the Church and landlords tithe,
seigneurial fees, and labor services. Many Swiss lacked the freedom to settle where they
wanted to or choose the occupation they desired, (Grab 2003, p. 113). With the coming of
Revolutionary armies, existing oligarchs were dispossessed or forced to cede power, and feudal
privileges largely disappeared.
In Germany, the only real changes during this period were in the Rhineland (West Bank
of the Rhine). While the impact of the French on the Rhineland during the 1790s remains
controversial, especially because of the great deal of plunder and the resulting resentment by
the local population mentioned above (see, e.g., Blanning, 1983, Doyle, 1989, Grab, 2003), the
importance of the revolutionary reforms in Rhineland is not in question. Even a critic of the
French, such as Blanning (1983), admits the signicant institutional reforms undertaken by
the French in the Rhineland. These reforms are discussed in greater detail in subsection 3.7
18
below.
In Italy, several new Republics were established with French-style constitutions, parliaments
(on a property-based franchise), and more ecient systems of administration. Extensive aris-
tocratic privileges were abolished and the notion of equality before the law was introduced in
earnest for the rst time (see Doyle, 1989, Chapter 15, Grab, 2003, Chapter 10, Broers, 1997,
2005).
3.5 Napoleon At the Helm
Napoleons institutional legacy outside of France is complicated because what he tried to
achieve varied across countries in general, and in the case of Germany in particular. At least
in some places there was a genuine attempt to continue and deepen the reforms brought by
the Revolution.
19
In many cases, what Napoleon could achieve was a function of how rm
his grip was over a particular area. For example, Grab writes (2003, p. 25): The duration
of Napoleonic domination also aected implementation of the reforms. The length of French
domination throughout the Empire was uneven, ranging from several months in Portugal to
close to 20 years in Belgium, Lombardy, and the Rhineland. Moreover, Napoleons objective
was not always to improve the institutions per se, but to maximize revenues and recruit men
more eciently Grab (2003, p. x), which, nonetheless, encouraged Napoleon to undertake
broad reforms in the areas he occupied.
Overall, the consensus amongst modern historians seems to be that the Napoleonic reforms
had signicant and important impacts, though there is some disagreement on this point. Many
historians believe that a key benecial aspect of Napoleons rule was the creation of an ecient,
centralized bureaucratic state (e.g., Laven and Riall, 2000). Napoleonic tax collection and
policing were much better organized than anything previously seen.
On a European level, the main signicance of the Napoleonic rule lay in marking
the transition from the ancien rgime to the modern era. Napoleon was a forerun-
ner of change, launching reform policies that paved the way for the long process
of modernization of European states and societies. In the context of 19th cen-
tury Europe, modernization meant a number of elements: centralized states with
professional bureaucracies based on merit; uniform taxation; conscripted national
armies; a state police force; the end of the privileged position of the nobility and its
19
Our view here builds on Grab (2003), as well as Connolly (1965) and Woolf (1991).
19
monopoly over power; secularization through the reduction of Church power and
its subjugation to the State; the political and social advance of the bourgeoisie ..;
legal equality; property rights; dissolution of the seigneurial system; the formation
of national markets .. Despite the fact that Napoleonic reform policies in Europe
fell short of the stated goals .. Napoleon succeeded in replacing a great deal of the
traditional structure with new laws and institutions in many of his subject states,
thereby facilitating their passage into the modern period (Grab, 2003, p. 20).
Nevertheless, as Grab himself notes, Napoleon was Janus facedundermining his reforms
by his complicity to the rule of the local oligarchs. He writes:
Paradoxically, Napoleon himself sometimes undermined his own reform policies ...
In a number of states he compromised with conservative elites, allowing them to
preserve their privileges as long as they recognized his supreme position (Grab,
2003, p. 23).
For instance, He allowed the Polish nobility to continue its control over the peasants, contra-
dicting the new Constitution and Code Napoleon (p. 23). Many authors point to dierent
aspects of the reforms which were contradictory. In many instances, Napoleon tried to co-opt
existing elites. Land that was taken from princes or the Church was distributed as donations
to the favored.
3.6 Institutional Changes Induced by Napoleon
The Janus-faced nature of Napoleon and his reforms implies that the implications of these
reforms vary from place to place. In the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland, Napoleon
consolidated the changes brought by the Revolution, with an emphasis on establishing (his)
legal code and a downplaying of any move towards democracy. Some of the old elite crept
back into inuential positions, but for the most part these societies became more like France
relatively centralized states that were professionally-run and able to collect taxes.
20
Napoleons impact on Spain is controversial. Napoleon acquired nominal control over Spain
quite late (1808) and from that time on he had considerable distractions in the form of almost
continual major wars. The Code Napoleon was supposedly introduced, but it is unclear whether
20
Napoleon also briey invaded Portugal, but the French presence did not last long, partly due to British
intervention. We therefore treat Portugal as part of the control group, along with Austria (where Napoleon also
had military victories but never tried impose institutions).
20
it was ever properly implemented. There was also considerable popular resistance, abetted by
the British directly and through their base in Portugal, and by 1812 the French had lost
eective control south of the Pyrenees.
In Italy, the Code Napoleon was implemented in the North but there were also profound
changes in the South. Davis (1991, p. 134), the main expert on the French legacy in Southern
Italy argues that:
21
For all its brevity, the decade of French rule was one of intensive administrative
and juridicial reforms and the speed with which the French administrators set about
dismantling the Ancien Rgime state was remarkable .. The central clutch of re-
forms the abolition of feudalism, the reorganization of the central and peripheral
administrative institutions of the state, the restructuring of the nancial adminis-
tration and taxation- was pushed through in the rst months of the occupation.
3.7 Institutional Reforms Within Germany
In our city-level analysis, we examine variation within Germany. As with the country level
analysis, it is important to distinguish between what was done by the Revolutionary armies
and what was established by Napoleon.
As noted above, there were signicant dierences in the extent of feudalism to the East
of the Elbe and Saale rivers and those to the West. The area to the east was subject to the
second serfdom (for example, Blum, 1957), which appears to have been much more onerous
than the remnants of the serfdom to the west of this line (see, for example, the discussion in
subsection 3.2). This makes the cities to the east and west dicult to compare, and in our
base specication we limit the sample to cities to the west of the Elbe.
Also as discussed above, the Rhineland was the only area controlled by the Revolutionary
armies, and underwent considerable institutional reform during the period of French occupa-
tion. Most signicantly, in 1798 the seigneurial regime and the guilds were abolished (Blanning,
1983, p. 137 and 155), and this paved the way to a relatively free labor market. The freeing
21
We are still working on the details of the Italian case. For example, Murat (one of Napoleons favorite
generals, who ran the Kingdom of Naples for a while) rid the South of feudalism without legislating compensation.
This is impressive, even in comparison, say, with Germany (Grab, 2003, p. 167). Peasants where freed from
labor obligations to the lords (Gregory, 2001, Chapter 6 notes that there was unpaid personal service in the
Southa key element of feudalismand this apparently stopped). However, the same sources indicate the
peasants did not become better o because barons managed to acquire most of the Church and common land
that was sold o. This is much like the Prussian case where one of the legacy of the 1806 reforms was that it
allowed large landowners to massively expand their own private holdings.
21
of labor was a major reform and meant that master artisans could (and did) set up their
shops whenever possible (Diefendorf 1980, p. 164). Equally important were the legal changes.
For example, the French created the rst commercial court in Aachen in 1794, and followed
with similar courts elsewhere in the Rhineland (Diefendorf 1980, pp. 159-160), which were to
play an important role in the creation of commercial and industrial businesses in the years to
follow. Another reason for why the reforms in the Rhineland were fundamentally deep-rooted
was that, all in all, this was the area of Germany that the French rule lasted longest, essen-
tially for 20 years. This enabled what was started by the French Revolution to be consolidated
during the later period. For example, Kisch (1989, p. 212) describes this as: When the
many strands of commercial legislation were subsequently consolidated in the Code Napoleon,
the Rhineland (on the left bank) was not only given a most up-to-date legal framework, but
also a system of government in close harmony with the needs of a buoyantly industrializing
society. The consequence of all of these changes was the transformation of the Rhineland from
an oligarchy-dominated area to one open to new business and new entrants. Instead of the
traditional oligarchy, in 1810 merchants/manufacturers comprised about half the members of
Conseil General (municipal administrations) in leading Rhineland towns (Diefendorf 1980, p.
115), and business people were also well represented in the higher department-level Conseil
General. Overall, the historical evidence seems to indicate that the French Revolution had a
major eect on the political, legal and economic institutions on the Rhineland.
In contrast to the Revolutionary armies whose control in Germany was limited to the
Rhineland, Napoleon constructed a string of satellite buer states on Frances eastern border.
There were several iterations, but the big break point followed the Peace of Lunville (Feb-
ruary 1801), with a massive reorganization of the territories that comprised the Holy Roman
Empire (roughly Austria and Germany in its 1914 borders). Much of the astonishing variety
of the Empire disappeared112 independent estates, 66 ecclesiastical territories and 421 free
imperial cities vanished and were consolidated into a larger cluster of kingdoms, principalities,
and duchies. The main beneciaries were the Grand Duchy of Baden and the kingdoms of
Wrttenberg and Bavaria (all on or close to the right bank of the Rhine). Napoleon brought
these all together in 1806 in the Rheinbund (known in English as the Confederation of the
Rhine). There was a further reduction to fewer than 40 states (Grab, 2003, pp. 89-90). Ini-
tially, in 1806 only 16 states joined the Rheinbund, this expanded to 39 in 1808 (see Schmitt,
1983).
22
During this period Napoleon also took over parts of Northern Germany including in De-
cember 1810 the annexation of Hamburg, Lbeck and Bremen (Hanseatic cities). The Duchy
of Berg was formed in March 1806, the Kingdom of Westphalia in August 1807, and the Duchy
of Frankfurt in February 1810. These were run by the French and were formed out of states
merged together by Napoleon. This was the state of aairs, roughly, until the collapse following
Napoleons invasion of Russia.
Reforms certainly took place in these areas. For example, Connelly (1965) notes that in the
constitution of Westphalia (a reconstituted satellite state) which was issued at Fontainebleau
on November 15 1807:
The kings subjects were guaranteed equality before the law and religious liberty;
serfdom and feudal rights were abolished; noble titles were armed, but were to
command no special rights, privileges or oces. Taxes were to fall equally on all
classes in all parts of the kingdom. Provision was made for a ministry, council of
state, and a parliament of one hundred (seventy landowners, fteen merchants and
manufacturers, fteen savants and distinguished citizens) . . . Eective January
1, 1808, the Code Napolon was to be the civil law. The judiciary was to be
independent but was appointed by the king, who could review his appointments
every ve years. Connelly (1965, p. 184)
He later notes (p. 189) that all vestiges of feudal law, together with seigniorial and church
courts, disappeared in the rst months of 1808 and
All men were equal before the law and eligible for oce.
Although the political changes were not implemented (the parliament hardly met), the eco-
nomic changes were profound andin this case and in many otherslargely irreversible.
22
4 Data
In this section, we describe the four types of data we use for our empirical analysis. These are
country-level and city-level economic outcome variables, already discussed briey in Section 2,
22
Although the historical evidence indicates that the reforms undertaken by the French were irreversible
or at the very least not reversed, exactly why this is the case is not always clear. We return to this issue in
Section 7.
23
and our coding based on the discussion in Section 3 of which countries and which cities within
Germany were treated. In all cases, further details are contained in the Data Appendix.
4.1 Country-Level Outcome Variables
We use three data series to measure economic development across countries. Our rst measure
of national prosperity is the urbanization rate of a country, measured as the percent of the
population living in cities with more than 5,000 inhabitants. Bairoch (1988, Chapter 1) and de
Vries (1976, p. 164) argue that only areas with high agricultural productivity and a developed
transportation network could support large urban populations. In addition, in Acemoglu,
Johnson and Robinson (2002a and 2005a) we presented evidence that both in the time-series
and the cross-section there is a close association between urbanization and income per capita
before as well as after industrialization. As in our previous work, we take urbanization as
the best available proxy for GDP per capita, recognizing that at this phase in European
development it likely picks up the growth of industrial activity based in cities. The reason for
choosing urbanization as our based measure is that the estimates of urbanization for European
countries from Bairoch (1988) are fairly reliable, and also the use of urbanization rate as a
proxy for economic prosperity creates a continuity between our country-level analysis and the
city-level analysis, which will rely on the urban population of the cities.
Second, we use estimates of GDP per capita from Maddison (2003). The numbers before
1820 are educated guesses by Maddison, but are generally viewed to be informative about the
ranking of the countries in terms of their prosperity. These estimates start in 1500, and are
available for 1600, 1700, 1820, and then more frequently. We use the results with the GDP
per capita estimates as a check on our urbanization rate results. Nevertheless, there is a major
discrepancy between Bairochs urbanization numbers and Maddisons estimates of GDP per
capita, which involves Italy. While both Maddison and Bairoch agree that Italy industrialized
during the 19th century, they disagree on the exact extent. Bairoch has urbanization in 1850 of
23%, rising to 40% in 1900 (which put Italy between Spain and the Netherlands, and ahead of
Switzerland). Bairochs (1982) industrial production per capita data show a matching increase
(and little change before 1860). In contrast, Maddisons GDP series for Italy shows less change
in the 19th century, rising from $1350 in 1850 to $1785 in 1900. A major part of the discrepancy
between Maddison and Bairoch lies in the fact that, in constructing his average for the entire
country, Maddison puts high weight on two relatively slow-growing parts of Italy that joined
24
the union only after 1860: Venice and the Papal States, depressing is growth estimates for
Italy.
23
For this reason, we trust Bairochs (1988) urbanization numbers more, and in any
case, report all of our results with and without Italy, to make sure that the discrepancy over
Italy should have no eect on the results.
Finally, we use data on industrial production per capita from Bairoch (1982). These num-
bers are probably the most problematic, since there was no way of measuring industrial produc-
tion in a systematic way. Nevertheless, since our hypothesis emphasizes the industrialization
channel, we nd it useful to look at these numbers both as a check on the results with urban-
ization rate and GDP per capita and also as a way of understanding the mechanism through
which changes in institutions may have aected the growth potential of dierent countries.
4.2 Urbanization Data for German Cities
To measure dierential performance within Germany, we use the city level population data
from Bairoch, Batou and Chvre (1988). The complete dataset has information on all 2,200
European cities which had, at some time between 800 and 1800, 5,000 or more inhabitants;
there are data on around 240 German cities for the time period we are investigating.
24
The
Bairoch et al dataset stops in 1850 and does not have information on city size between 1800
and 1850. For this reason, we augment it with estimates from Lahmeyer (2005) and Mitchell
(1981). We use Lahmeyer for 1818, 1871, and 1910. We use Mitchell to conrm Lahmeyers
data and to ll any gaps. Both Lahmeyer and Mitchell have the disadvantage of covering cities
that became larger, with an obvious selection bias.
25
In future work, we plan to extend the
full Bairoch, Batou, and Chevre data through 1900/1910. For now, as the robustness checks,
we also show results just using the Bairoch et al. data
23
Interestingly, both these parts had little treatment from the French RevolutionVenice was almost con-
tinually under Austrian control, although Napoleon did manage to plunder some of its art treasures, and the
Papal States were taken very late into the Empire (part of a belated attempt to make the Continental Blockade
eectively), with no attempt to improve their institutions.
24
These data begin in 800, and there are estimates for every 100 years until 1700, then for every 50 years
through 1850. However, Bairoch, Batou and Chvre (1988) emphasize that estimates before 1300 are rough and
less reliable (and they skip the year 1100 due to lack of information). These data were used previously by De
Long and Shleifer (1993).
25
Our analysis so far indicates we are missing data for a number of smaller cities in the Ruhr that grew
rapidly between 1850 and 1900. The entire Ruhr area is in our Napoleon treated region (although not in our
revolutionary armies treated region.)
25
4.3 Cross-Country Institutional Reforms
The history reviewed in Section 3 suggests two ways to code where the French Revolution
had impact. The rst and perhaps most appealing coding constitutes the set of countries
(or cities, when we look at variation within Germany) that the French controlled during the
revolutionary period, until the dictatorship of Napoleon. This constitutes the area where the
French Revolution genuinely forced radical reforms, as opposed to the more ambiguous reforms
imposed by Napoleon, which were, in any case, not always implemented.
26
For example, in the
case of Switzerland after 1803, Napoleon reached an accommodation with the old elite that
essentially allowed them to return to power (Grab 2003, p. 117). Elsewhere,
even where the Code Napolon was promulgated there continued to be territories
in which the process of abolishing aspects of feudalism and seigneurial privilege
was at best gradual, at worst moribund. Sometimes there was a lack of ocials
keen to enforce the legislation; sometimes compromise seemed the best way on en-
suring the loyalty of the elite of landowners, especially in those areas of central
and eastern Europe where feudalism seemed more deeply rooted than it had been
in France in 1789. In the Grand Duchy of Warsaw regardless of the introduction
of the Napoleonic Code, the position of the peasant remained largely unchanged
. . . In parts of the Confederation of the Rhine many landowners ignored or cir-
cumvented the code so as to hang on to their traditional dues and their rights of
labor. Yet on the left bank of the Rhine, in the departments annexed to France
during the revolutionary decade, the Code became rmly entrenched. Indeed, it
was so well entrenched that, after 1815, the Rhenish elite successfully preserved the
Code and resisted attempts of their new Prussian masters to introduce the Prussian
Allgemeines Landrecht. (Emsley, 2003, pp. 62-63)
This motivates our rst coding, limiting the treated areas to those invaded by the French
revolutionary armies, thus the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.
26
This was partly because Napoleon controlled these territories for a relatively short period of time, which,
as noted above, limited what he could achieve, and also in part because he had other priorities, such as raising
revenue for his wars. In any case, whatever that reason, there was a considerable degree of backsliding over the
planned or purported reforms.
26
The second coding, on the other hand, includes countries occupied by Napoleon, which adds
Spain.
27
The untreated countries are all those in Europe for which we have data, including
England/Britain, Portugal, Austria, the Czech country, Ireland, Hungary, Scandinavia and
Eastern Europe.
28
4.4 The Impact of the French Revolution on German Cities
In terms of within Germany impact, the Revolutionary armies only conquered the Rhineland
during the 1790s. Therefore, with the same reasoning as above, our baseline coding only
includes the Rhineland. As noted above, to create a comparable set of untreated cities, we
compare the Rhineland to other cities to the west of the Elbe.
Our second coding includes cities in satellite states controlled or created by Napoleon.
Napoleons policies within Germany were quite varied, including the distinction between an-
nexed lands (incorporated into friends), conquered lands and allied lands. We code places as
treated by Napoleon if they fall in the category of annexed and conquered lands, or if they
were ruled through appointing the ruler (e.g., his son or a general).
29
The cities added to the
treatment group in this second coding are therefore those in the states of Westphalia, Berg,
Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, and the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt.
30
In addition, an area of north-
west Germany through to Luebeck was annexed into France, along with some smaller border
cities, and are thus added to the treatment group.
31
The Rhineland was also part of France
27
The extent to which important or institutional reforms were imposed in Spain is questionable, since it was
ruled by Napoleons cousin, in alliance with the existing oligarchy.
In addition, Poland could also be coded as controlled by Napoleon, albeit briey. But we do not have data
on Poland, as it did not exist as an independent country during the 19th century.
28
The precise availability for various East European countries varies; see the data appendix for more detail.
29
Napoleon liked to reshu-e rulers as his needs changed, but Berg was ruled by Murat (one of Napoleons top
generals and his brother-in-law) when it rst came under French control and Westphalia was ruled by Napoleons
younger brother Jerome. When Murat moved on to become King of Naples, he was replaced by Napoleons
four-year-old nephew. The cities of Hamburg, Lubeck and Bremen, with associated hinterland, were annexed to
France in 1810 (as part of Napoleons attempt to enforce the Continental Blockade against trade with England.)
The Rhineland was annexed to France in the 1790s.
30
Westphalia and Berg were denitely controlled by Napoleons family members. In Frankfurt, Napoleons rep-
resentative was in control (Grab 2003, p. 103). Hesse-Darmstadt and Nassau received territory from Napoleon;
their rulers were his close allies and did his bidding in terms of institutional changes (Grab 2003, pp. 106-7.)
The extent of Napoleonic control over Baden is more controversial, but nothing signicant in our results changes
if we alter the coding for this state to untreated.
31
Roughly speaking, these satellites form a band generally 50-100 miles across, running along the Rhine for
most of its length. Towards the north, in what was then Westphalia, the band is much wider and reaches
up towards Hamburg, and touches the Elbe (the area of Germany to the north of Westphalia was annexed
directly into France). Essentially, Napoleon created a buer of compliant states run under his close control and
implementing the institutional changes that he dictated.
27
through the Napoleonic period, and therefore remains in the treated category.
In all of these areas, Napoleon introduced a number of reforms, but he also allowed a
remarkable continuity in the identity of the elites under Napoleon. For example, Grab (2003,
p. 101) writes:
Westphalia made the greatest progress among the Confederations states toward
becoming a society of equal citizens. [But] As in the other Napoleonic satellites,
however, the Westphalian nobility remained the dominant class. ... Seigneurial re-
lations persisted in the Westphalian countryside, which exposed the contradictions
of the Napoleonic system in that German model state.
This assessment motivates our coding in which occupation by the French Revolutionary
armies is the baseline treatment, while occupation by Napoleon is the second treatment. In
addition, as noted above, our base specication, the sample comprises only cities to the west of
the Elbe/Saale riversthis is based on the evidence that there were similar initial institutions
(with only weak remnants of feudalism) in this area.
4.5 Timing the Impact of the French Revolution
The Revolutionary/Napoleonic period ended in 1815 with the Congress of Vienna. In principle,
the positive or negative eects of French occupation can be felt as early as 1800. However,
it would be nave to expect a positive eect around 1800, since the immediate eect of the
French occupation, as emphasized above, was chaos and heavy taxation.
Instead, we are more interested in the medium-run or long-run eects of institutional
changes brought by the French Revolution. In particular, our hypothesis is that the benecial
eects of institutions abolishing the remnants of feudalism and removing the oligarchic grip of
the nobility and the guilds should be felt once new technological opportunities create a group
of potential new entrepreneurs ready to take advantage of the new institutional environment.
Therefore, our hypothesis suggests we should look for positive eects quite a bit later than 1815,
most likely towards the second half of the 19th century, when the process of industrialization
was truly underway throughout the world.
32
32
To get a sense of the rapid advent of industrialization over this time period, note that in 1825 Britain had
a grand total of 25 miles of railway line, while in 1840 it had over 2,000 miles, and in 1850 it had nearly 10,000
miles (Mitchell 1981, p. 610)
28
5 Cross-Country Regression Evidence
In this section, we investigate the patterns shown in Figures 1-3 using regression analysis. As
in Section 2, our basic outcome variables are urbanization rates, log GDP per capita and log
industrial output per capita. Recall also that in all cases we have a panel data set, but with
time periods unevenly spread (e.g., from Madison, 2002, we have income per capita for 1500,
1600, 1700, 1820, 1850, 1870, 1890 and 1900).
33
Finally, as described in the previous section,
we have a classication of countries into treated and untreated categories. Our basic regression
model is as follows:
j
jt
= d
t
+ c
j
+
X
t2T
c
t
1
j
+X
0
jt
+ -
jt
, (1)
where j
jt
is the outcome variable (urbanization, log GDP per capita or log industrial output
per capita) in country , at time t, the d
t
s denote a full set of time eects, the c
j
s denote a
full set of country eects, X
jt
is a vector of other covariates, which will be included in some
of the robustness checks, and -
jt
is a disturbance term. The key variable of interest for us
is the dummy 1
j
, which takes the value of 1 for countries treated by the French Revolution
and Napoleon, and zero otherwise. The term
P
t2T
c
t
1
j
therefore estimates a potentially
dierential growth eect for every time period in the set T , for example, a dierential growth
for every year after 1800. The reason for writing this equation in this way, with a general T
set, is that we will vary which years are included in the post category, to investigate whether
there are pre-existing trends in any of the variables we are looking at.
An alternative way of writing equation (1) may be more useful:
j
jt
= d
t
+ c
j
+
X
t2T
post
c
t
1
j
+
X
t2T
pre
c
t
1
j
+X
0
jt
+ -
jt
, (2)
where T
post
and T
pre
are two disjoint sets of dates. The dates in T
post
are post-treatment, while
those in T
pre
are just before treatment, thus their inclusion will be our check for pre-existing
trends.
Throughout the paper, all standard errors are robust and allow for an arbitrary variance-
covariance matrix at the country (or below at the city) level to allow for potential serial
correlation in the residual error term (see Wooldridge, 2002, Chapter 7).
34
33
The industrial production and urbanization datasets are balanced, and the GDP per capita dataset is almost
balanced (missing data for a couple of years for Russia). See the Data Appendix for more detail.
34
The Huber-White standard errors are smaller in all cases, so the fully robust variance-covariance matrix
29
5.1 Main Results: Urbanization
We start in Table 2 with our preferred measure of prosperity in the 19th century, urbanization
rates, as the dependent variable, j
jt
. The top panel denes the treated group as our baseline,
those invaded by the Revolutionary armies, while the bottom panel adds Spain, the only
additional area controlled by Napoleon for which we have data. The set T
post
includes the
treatment years 1850 and 1913, with 1300, 1500, 1700, 1750, and 1800 as the omitted years.
Columns 1 and 2 are for the base sample which includes Eastern Europe and Britain. In column
1, both the interaction terms from 1850 onwards are positive, and the interaction with 1913
is signicant at less than 1%. The F-test at the bottom of the panel comfortably rejects the
hypothesis all of the interaction terms in the set T
post
, i.e., all of the fc
t
g
t2T
post s are equal to
zero. This shows there is signicant dierential growth in urbanization in the treated countries
relative to the untreated. The numerical values of the coecients are also economically large.
For example c
1993
is estimated to be 0.16 with a fully robust standard error of 0.05, which
implies that by 1913, there was approximately 16 percent points more urbanization (i.e., an
urbanization rate higher by 0.16) in the treated countries compared with nontreated countries.
Column 2 adds the interaction with 1750 and 1800 (i.e., it adds the set T
pre
including
the dates 1750 and 1800 to the post-treatment years), which is useful as a specication check.
Since 1800 is too early for the institutional changes brought by the French Revolution to have
any impact on industrial production (and there were relatively few new industrial technologies
available at that date), both of these terms should be interpreted as a test for pre-existing
trends. Interestingly, both interaction terms are negative and numerically quite small. For
example, c
1750
is estimated to be -0.007 (standard error = 0.04) and c
1880
is -0.018 (standard
error= 0.04), while the interaction terms for 1850 and 1913 are hardly aected. These regres-
sions therefore reiterate the pattern shown in Figures 1A and 1B of a signicant increase in
urbanization among the treated countries, with no evidence of a pre-existing dierential trend
between treated and untreated countries before 1850.
As noted in Section 4, there is disagreement between Bairochs and Maddisons data on the
growth of Italy. It is therefore important to see whether the results are robust to the exclusion
of this country. Columns 3 and 4 repeat the same regressions, but now excluding Italy. The
results are very similar; now c
1913
is estimated to be 0.13 (standard error= 0.04), and there
makes our inference considerably more conservative, and turn some otherwise statistically signicant results to
insignicant.
30
is again no evidence of pre-existing trends. The F-tests at the bottom of these columns again
comfortably reject the hypothesis that the interaction terms measuring the dierential growth
of the treated area in the post-treatment period are equal to zero.
Columns 5 and 6 exclude the UK (Britain) from the sample. As discussed in Section 2,
Britain already had the most developed institutions and the most industrialized economy in
Europe, so it may not be a very good comparison (either because the rest of Europe might
be catching up to the UK or because the UK might be on a dierent growth trajectory). In
any case, the results in columns 5 and 6 in both panels are very similar to those with the UK
in columns 1 and 2. For example, now c
1913
is estimated to be 0.19 (standard error =0.04)
without the pre-treatment years and 0.18 with the pre-treatment years, again with all the
pre-treatment years having negative, very small and insignicant coecients.
In the same way that Britain may not be a good control group for the treated countries
because it is too industrialized, Eastern Europe may also be a bad control group because it
is relatively backward. Therefore, columns 7 and 8 exclude both Eastern Europe and Britain.
The pattern is now very similar to those in columns 1 and 2, for example, with an estimate
of c
1913
equal to 0.16 (standard error = 0.04), and no evidence of pre-existing trends. Once
again, the F-test comfortably rejects the hypothesis that the interaction terms in the set T
post
are equal to zero.
The bottom panel of Table 2 repeats the same regressions for areas controlled by Napoleon
instead of countries occupied by the Revolutionary armies. The results are very similar to
those in the top panel. For example, in the baselines specication, c
1913
is estimated to be
0.16 (standard error=0.04), and column 2 shows no evidence of pre-existing trends. The F-tests
at the bottom of these columns again comfortably reject the hypothesis that the interaction
terms in the set T
post
are equal to zero. The results in the remaining columns are also similar
to those in the top panel.
Overall, this evidence shows that countries conquered by the Revolutionary armies or
Napoleon show no dierential trend in prosperity before 1850, but signicant dierential growth
after 1850.
5.2 Results with GDP Per Capita
Table 3 repeats the same regressions as in Table 2 but using log GDP per capita from Maddison
(2003) as the dependent variable j
jt
, and is thus a check on the results using urbanization rates.
31
Now, the post-treatment years (the set T
post
) are 1850 and after (that is, 1870, 1890 and 1900),
and the specication test will use 1700 and 1820 as the pre-treatment dates (even though there
may already be some eect in 1820, we expect this to be very limited). Again, the top panel
refers to the treatment dened by occupation by the French Revolutionary armies, and the
bottom panel is for Napoleon.
In column 1, none of the individual coecients, fc
t
g
t2T
post s, are individually signicant,
and they are jointly signicant at 7%. Adding 1700 and 1820 does not aect this pattern.
Columns 3 and 4 show that the pattern of insignicant results is driven by the Maddisons
estimates for Italy, which, as discussed above, may be unreliable. Once Italy is excluded, the
numbers are very similar to those in Table 2 using urbanization. For example, in column 3
c
1900
is estimated to be a 0.30 (standard error =0.14), which implies that by 1900 the treated
countries were about 30% richer than those that were untreated. The F-test at the bottom
shows that the hypothesis that fc
t
g
t2T
post s are equal to zero is rejected at less than 1%. In
column 4, the interactions with 1700 and 1820 are added for pre-specication tests. These
estimates are positive and sometimes substantial, but insignicant.
The rest of the table is similar to Table 2, and conrms the pattern shown in columns1-4.
Overall, the results with GDP per capita are consistent with the urbanization results, but
also markedly weaker. First, with Maddisons Italy estimates included, the coecient estimates
are statistically insignicant. Second, the pre-existing trend terms are positive and not always
small, though always statistically insignicant.
5.3 Results with Industrial Production Per Capita
In Table 4, we turn to log industrial output per capita, which is both a check on the results
of Tables 2 and 3, and also an investigation of the mechanism through which the institutional
reforms of the French Revolution may have impacted the future growth of neighboring coun-
tries. In this case, there is more of a question mark as to what the set T
post
should include,
since we have data for the years 1830 and 1860 (it always includes 1880, 1900 and 1913, with
1800 and 1750 as the omitted years). One possibility is to consider only the second half of the
19th century as the post-treatment date as we did with the other data. But 1830 might be
already late enough to see some eect. Therefore, we experiment with both possibilities, and
in all cases at the bottom of the table we report p-values from F-tests for both 1830-1913 and
1860-1913.
32
The top panel is again for conquest by the Revolutionary armies, and the bottom panel is
for Napoleon. Column 1 shows the eect of treatment on log industrial production starting
in 1830. All of the coecients are positive, but none of them are signicant at less than 5%.
The estimates for both c
1900
and c
1913
are reasonably large, 0.50 and 0.59, and are signicant
at 10%. The F-test at the bottom shows that hypothesis that fc
t
g
t2T
post s are equal to zero
can be rejected at 8% when 1830 is included in T
post
and at 5% when T
post
starts with 1860.
Column 2 adds the interaction with 1800, which is positive but small and insignicant. This
additional interaction has no eect on the pattern of coecients or the joint signicance of the
interaction terms.
Columns 3 and 4 again show the results without Italy, while columns 5 and 6 show the
results without UK. Without the UK, the estimates are somewhat larger and statistically
more signicant. For example, c
1913
is now estimated at 0.66 (standard error= 0.32), which
is signicant at 5%, and the hypothesis that fc
t
g
t2T
post s are equal to zero can be rejected at
1% when 1830 is included in T
post
and at 3% when T
post
starts with 1860.
Columns 7 and 8 look at the sample without Eastern Europe and the UK. The magnitudes
are very similar to those in columns 1-6, but the estimates are no longer statistically signicant,
and the F-tests fail to reject hypothesis that fc
t
g
t2T
post s are equal to zero had conventional
signicance levels.
The bottom panel shows the results for the areas controlled by Napoleon, which are quan-
titatively similar to those in the top panel, but are on the whole less signicant. For example,
none of the estimates for the base sample are statistically signicant at 10% or less, and only
the F-tests for 1830-1913 in samples without Italy or without the UK reject the hypothesis
that all fc
t
g
t2T
post s are equal to zero at 10% or less.
Overall, we interpret these results as broadly similar to, though markedly weaker than,
the urbanization results (especially in the samples without Eastern Europe and the United
Kingdom and in the case where treatment is dened by Napoleons occupation, the dierences
between treated and untreated countries are no longer statistically signicant). There is very
little evidence for pre-existing trends, and all of the estimates are always positive and signicant
about half of the time.
33
5.4 Robustness
Table 5 looks at the robustness of our urbanization results, which showed the most consistent
pattern of divergence between treated and untreated countries. Five dierent sets of robustness
exercises are reported, once again in two panels corresponding to the treatment groups dened
by invasion by the Revolutionary armies or occupation by Napoleon.
First, we include in the covariates vector X
jt
a full set of interactions between initial j
jt
and
the full set of year dummies (i.e.,
P
t
j
t
j
jt
0
where t
0
is the initial date in the sample). This is
a very exible (and demanding) way of controlling for any pre-existing trends and any pattern
of mean reversion. The initial date for this exercise is either 1300 or 1500, and the results are
reported in columns 1 and 2. Remarkably, this check has little eect on our estimates; c
1913
is estimated at 0.13 (standard error= 0.04) with interactions starting from 1300 and at 0.12
(standard error 0.05) with interactions starting from 1500, though in all cases the interactions
between initial urbanization and the year dummies are also statistically signicant.
In column 3, we include a full set of interactions between year dummies and latitude (i.e.,
P
t
j
t
latitude
j
), as a check for certain geographic characteristics that may potentially cause
dierential growth across countries. This also has little eect on our estimates, for example
c
1913
again remains at 0.13 (standard errors =0.04). The latitude times year interactions
are themselves signicant at 4%. In column 4, we include a full set of interactions between
year dummies and an indicator for predominantly Protestant countries.
35
This is an important
control, since some inuential social scientists have argued for the importance of the Protestant
work ethic in causing or at least facilitating industrialization (e.g., Weber, 1905, Landes, 1998).
Interestingly, there is no evidence of dierential growth of protestant countries, and these time
interactions are jointly insignicant and have little eect on our estimates.
Finally, in column 5 we estimate a more structured specication, where rather than allowing
each year in the set T to have a dierent coecient, we impose a post-treatment eect that
takes a linear growth form. In particular, the estimates in Table 2 show that the dierential
growth between treated and untreated countries is expanding over time. A natural conjecture
might be that this is going to be well captured by a dierential linear trend. For this reason,
we estimate the model
j
jt
= d
t
+ c
j
+ ,
X
t2T
post
(t t
1
) 1
j
+X
0
jt
+ -
jt
, (3)
35
The Protestant countries in our sample are Germany, Netherlands, England, Switzerland, the Czech country,
and all countries in Scandinavia. See the Data Appendix for details.
34
where t
1
+ 1 is the rst treatment year, which depends on the outcome variable in question.
For urbanization, since our rst treatment here is 1850, t
1
is taken to be 1849. This model
leads to an estimate of , equal to 0.0019 (recall that the coecient in the table is multiplied by
1000). This estimate indicates that treated countries experienced an increase in urbanization
of about 1 percentage point every 10 years during the treatment era, which is a large eect,
but is broadly comparable to the estimates for c
1850
and c
1913
in Table 2.
The bottom panel shows the same results for areas under Napoleons control. The pattern
is very similar to those in the top panel and to those in Table 2.
Overall, we conclude that there is a robust eect of the change in institutions imposed by
the French Revolution or by Napoleon on the urbanization patterns of treated countries. This
indicates that the institutional changes, interacting with the opportunities to industrialize, had
a major economic eect. Nevertheless, the evidence is suggestive rather than conclusive, since
the results with log GDP per capita and log industrial production per capita were somewhat
weaker, and as Figures 1-3 show, there were already level dierences between treated and
untreated countries before the French intervention (though no evidence of dierential trends).
6 German City-Level Regression Evidence
The country-level analysis indicates that countries where the French Revolution imposed radi-
cal institutional reforms, such as the abolition of feudal land relations, the power of the church
and the guilds, experienced signicantly faster growth in the second half of the 19th cen-
tury. Nevertheless, this analysis was limited to 23 countries, each with a dierent history and
idiosyncratic features. Although the institutions of the French Revolution were exogenously
imposed on these countries, this does not make our key right hand side variable econometrically
exogenous, since these countries could have systematically grown at dierent rates even in the
absence of the French intervention. Ultimately, other factors may have been responsible for
the divergence of economic fortunes among the treated and untreated countries within Europe.
This concern is heightened by the fact that, as shown in Figures 1-3, the treated countries were
on average richer and more prosperous before the arrival of the French Revolution. This and
the fact that the results with log GDP per capita are not signicant (unless we exclude Mad-
disons estimates for Italy) make us cautious in interpreting the above patterns as the causal
eect of the radical institutional reforms of the French Revolution, and encourage us to look
at within Germany dierences.
35
6.1 Baseline Results
To further investigate the potential eects of the institutional reforms, we next turn to an
analysis of the impact of French occupation (and institutional reform) on German cities. As
noted above, for this purpose, we use data on the population of individual cities compiled by
Bairoch, Batou and Chvre (1988) for the years 1700, 1750, 1800 and 1850 combined with
data from Lahmeyer for 1818, 1871, and 1910.
36
Our base sample is German cities to the
west of the Elbe and Saale rivers. As discussed in subsection 3.7, while there was considerable
variation in feudalism within Germany, there seems to be general agreement that serfdom was
not widespread in this area, though many remnants of feudalism still persisted (Blum, 1957).
Therefore, cities to the west of the Elbe provide us with that fairly homogeneous set of cities
to gauge the eect of the institutional reforms brought about by the French Revolution. As an
alternative, we use all of Germany as the untreated group, or simply Saxony and Mecklenburg
as the control group.
37
Cities in the latter two states have the advantage of being roughly
comparable to be treated cities, and having been least aected by the French Revolution and
Napoleon.
Finally, as also noted above, we again used two codings, one classifying only the Rhineland,
the area conquered by the French Revolutionary armies, as treated, and the second adding the
cities controlled by Napoleon to the treated category.
Our estimating equations are very similar to (1) and (3), and are given by
n
it
= d
t
+ c
i
+
X
t2T
c
t
1
i
+X
0
it
+ -
it
, (4)
and
n
it
= d
t
+ c
i
+
X
t2T
post
c
t
1
i
+
X
t2T
pre
c
t
1
i
+X
0
it
+ -
it
, (5)
where n
it
is the log of urban population in city i at time t, which is our measure of city-level
prosperity. The rest of the variables are similarly dened to those in equations (1) and (3):
the d
t
s denote a full set of time eects, the c
i
s denote a full set of city eects, X
it
is a vector
of other covariates, and -
it
is the error term. The dummy 1
i
denotes the treatment status
and takes the value of 1 for cities treated by the French Revolution and Napoleon, and zero
36
We also use the relevant data in Mitchell (1981) both to check Lahmeyer and to ll all possible gaps in the
dataset.
37
The historical record suggests that in neither Saxony nor Mecklenburg were there institutional reforms (e.g.,
Schmitt, 1983).
36
otherwise. In the baseline specication, 1
i
takes the value 1 for cities in the Rhineland. The
term
P
t2T
c
t
1
i
in (4) therefore again estimates a potentially dierential growth eect for
every time period in the set T , for example, a dierential growth eect for every year after
1800.
Our baseline sample uses the extended dataset (Bairoch et al., Lahmeyer, and Mitchell) so
consists of the years 1700, 1750, 1800, 1818, 1850, 1871, and 1910. We take the set T
post
to
consist of the years 1850, 1871, and 1910, and the pre-treatment specications are conducted
by considering the set T
pre
consisting of 1800 and 1818. In all cases, 1700 and 1750 are in the
omitted category.
The estimates of (4) and (5) using our baseline sample are given in Table 6. The top panel
is again for conquest by Revolutionary armies, which in the context of Germany means the
Rhineland, while the bottom panel includes all areas controlled by Napoleon (as dened in
Section 4).
Column 1 shows an estimate of c
1850
equal to 0.27 (standard error= 0.09), which is signif-
icant at 5%, and shows that the urban population in the Rhineland increased by about 27%
more relative to other areas to the west of the Elbe. However, the dierential growth is lower in
1871 and 1900 than the estimate for 1850 (respectively, 0.07 and 0.15 compared to 0.27) . This
may be partly because of the dierences between the Bairoch et al. and Lahmeyer datasets,
or because the rest of Germany caught up with the Rhineland. In any case, the F-test at the
bottom for joint signicance of all three coecients rejects at less than 1%.
In column 2, we add interactions with 1800 and 1818 as pre-specication checks. The
pattern of the post-1850 interactions is similar, while the 1800 interaction is positive and
insignicant and the 1818 interaction is negative and insignicant. Overall, there appears to
be no evidence for pre-existing trend in these data.
We nd the same pattern in columns 3 and 4 when we look at all of Germany, and in
columns 5 and 6 when we look at Saxony and Mecklenburg; once again, c
1850
is large and
signicant, but this eect disappears later on. With Saxony and Mecklenburg as the control
group, there is also evidence of pre-existing trends.
The bottom panel looks at cities occupied by Napoleon. Now the pattern is somewhat
more encouraging in column 1; c
1850
is estimated to be 0.16 (standard error= 0.07), while
c
1871
at 0.29 and c
1900
at 0.26 are larger than in 1850. However, now there is more evidence
of pre-existing trends. The results in the other columns are similar.
37
Overall, the evidence is not conclusive. Treated cities always appear to have grown faster
than the untreated cities in the entire post-treatment period, but the growth pattern is uneven,
and there is some evidence for pre-existing trends.
6.2 Robustness
Table 7 investigates the robustness of the results in Table 6 with the same type of controls we
used for the country-level data. Again the top panel is for the Rhineland, while the bottom
panel is for cities controlled by Napoleon.
Column 1 includes a full set of time interactions with the initial (log) city population as
a exible check for mean reversion and dierential trends. Although these interactions are
signicant, in our base sample they have little eect on the estimates of c
1850
, c
1871
and c
1900
.
Column 2 includes a full set of time interactions with latitude. These interactions themselves
are insignicant, and they have no eect on the estimates. Column 3 includes a full set of
interactions with a dummy for whether the citys predominant religion was Protestantism.
38
These interactions are themselves signicant (with a positive coecient on the Protestant
dummy), but again have little eect on the estimates of c
1850
, c
1871
and c
1900
.
The next three columns repeat these regressions for the whole of Germany, with fairly
similar results to those in columns 1-3 (and to those in Table 6).
The bottom panel shows results for cities controlled by Napoleon, which are somewhat
weaker. Now when the controls for the full set of latitude times year and Catholic times year
interactions are included, the treatment eects are no longer jointly signicant at 5% or less
(though in most cases the magnitude is similar to the corresponding coecient in Table 6).
Finally, Table 8 shows the same results limiting the sample only to the Bairoch et al. data.
Given the patterns in Table 6, the results in this table are not surprising. There is a statistically
signicant dierential eect at 1850, but also some evidence for dierential trends. The main
dierence from Table 6 is that now the results with the second coding, Napoleon-controlled
cities, are weaker rather than being stronger compared with the baseline coding.
Overall, the city level evidence is mixed. In all cases, cities that underwent radical insti-
tutional reform under the French Revolutionary armies or Napoleon show faster population
growth than the untreated cities (either to the west of the Elbe or in the whole of Germany),
38
We coded cities in states that were ocially Catholic (Bavaria and other Southern states where the monarch
was Catholic and/or the state was ocially Catholic) as non-Protestant. We are currently looking for further
information on additional isolated Catholic German cities. See the Data Appendix for further details.
38
but the time pattern of these eects is not always what we had expected, with a larger impact
in 1850 than later, and in most cases there is some evidence of pre-existing trends.
7 Interpretation
The evidence presented in the previous two sections shows that there was dierential growth of
areas that underwent radical institutional change under French inuence relative to untreated
areas, though both the country-level and the city-level results are not totally conclusive (there
is some evidence of pre-existing trends in the city-level data, and in the country-level data, the
results are highly robust only with urbanization, while they are less signicant with GDP per
capita and industrial production per capita). Nevertheless, given the data quality, we interpret
the evidence as suggestive of a positive long-run eect of the institutional changes brought by
the French Revolution.
7.1 Towards a Framework
We now provide an interpretation for the potential positive eect of institutional reforms
imposed by the French Revolution, and also discuss alternative interpretations.
Let us rst discuss and discard two hypotheses, which are a priori unattractive and also not
supported by the data. One of these would expect immediate positive, and the other immediate
negative, eects of the French intervention. We nd these hypotheses, especially the one
expecting an immediate positive eect, unappealing, since the imposition of new institutions
by the French came simultaneously with war, disruption, French occupation and sometimes
quite onerous taxes imposed by the French for the nancing of their war eort. Under these
circumstances, it would be surprising to nd a positive eect from the French intervention
immediately or shortly after the occupation.
An immediate negative eect, on the other hand, may be possible, precisely because of the
disruption, though again throughout this period, wars were commonplace, so the disruption of
war was a continuing presence for all of our sample.
Our hypothesis, instead, expects no immediate eect from the institutional changes imposed
by the French Revolution. What the French Revolution did was to abolish the hold of the
oligarchies (nobility, clergy and the guilds) on economic and political power. But as noted by
Homan (1996) in the context of France, it is not clear that the abolition of the existing quasi-
feudal relations would have led to a major change in agricultural productivity in any case.
39
The situation is very dierent, however, when we consider new economic, especially industrial,
opportunities.
The framework in Acemoglu (2003) is a useful starting point in this case. Acemoglu (2003)
emphasizes that oligarchic structures can achieve high levels of output with technologies that
do not require much selection, churning or creative destruction, but are likely to be a major
barrier to economic growth when entry by new and more productive entrepreneurs is important.
The empirical work in Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2002) on economic growth and
industrialization among the former European colonies and the contrast between Northeastern
United States and the Caribbean colonies between the 17th and 19th centuries (Engerman
and Sokolo, 1997) are consistent with this framework. The evidence in these cases suggests
that institutional dierences had a major eect in the age of industrialization, and a much
more limited eect before. For example, the Caribbean colonies of European powers, based on
highly repressive political regimes, slavery and plantation agriculture were among the richest
places in the world in the 17th and 18th centuries, but quickly fell behind Northeastern United
States in the 19th century, precisely because the latter economy achieved a very rapid rate
of industrialization. This expansion of industry was brought about not by the existing land
owners or elites, but by a new class of merchants, entrepreneurs, and innovators, who could
enter into every area of the economy because the democratic political institutions of the United
States did not place signicant entry barriers against newcomers.
The same reasoning applied to Europe suggests that institutional changes should have
their most major eect when interacting with new economic, especially industrial, opportu-
nities. For continental Europe, this meant the second half of the 19th century, when both
the industrialization process became more rapid at the world level and the advances already
achieved in Britain started spreading to the rest of Europe. Accordingly, the framework sug-
gests that countries dominated by the traditional oligarchy would be slow to take advantage of
industrial opportunities, and in some situations, the traditional elites might even actively block
industrialization and new opportunities. In fact, that this was the attitude of the landed elites
in Austria-Hungary and Russia is well-documented (see Acemoglu and Robinson, 2006b and
the references therein). The absolutist monarchies of these countries feared that promoting
industrialization would undermine their political power. In Russia, during the reign of Nikolai
I between 1825 and 1855 only one railway line was built, and this was simply to allow the court
to travel between Moscow and St. Petersburg. Economic growth and the set of institutions
40
that would have facilitated it were opposed since, as Mosse (1992, p. 146) puts it: it was
understood that industrial development might lead to social and political change. Gregory
(1991, p. 74) sums up this situation as: ... the Russian state feared that industrialization
and modernization would concentrate revolution minded workers in cities, railways would give
them mobility, and education would create opposition to the monarchy. The same was true for
Emperor Francis in Austria-Hungary, where the existing economic system essentially blocked
all economic progress for much of the 19th-century. Consequently, these living forces of the
traditional economic system were the greatest barrier to development. Their chief supporter
was ... Emperor Francis. He knew that the advances in the techniques of production threat-
ened the life of the old order of which he was so determined a protector. Because of his unique
position as nal arbiter of all proposals for change he could stem the ood for a time. Thus
when plans for the construction of a steam railroad were put before him, he refused to give
consent to their execution lest revolution might come into the country (Blum, 1943, p. 26).
In contrast, in areas where the French Revolution imposed radical reforms, including the
abolition of the remnants of feudalism, the reduction in the power of the clergy, the elimination
of the guilds entry barriers for proto-industrial activities, and perhaps most importantly, the
creation of equality before the law for all citizens, the slate was cleaned for taking advantage
of new economic opportunities.
Therefore, this framework leads to our basic hypothesis that the radical institutional re-
forms imposed by the French Revolution should have their eects when interacted with the new
economic opportunities of the second half of the 19th century. In this light, the interpretation
of the results presented above is clear: the empirical patterns conrm the eect of institutions
when interacting with the new economic opportunities and conrm the basic insights of the
framework.
7.2 Alternative Perspectives
Naturally, alternative interpretations are possible. Many of these were tested in our robustness
tables, and did not receive much support from the data. For example, the patterns documented
in Tables 2 and 6 do not appear to be driven by some type of mean reversion or dierential
growth on the basis of initial level of urbanization or urban population, nor do they appear
to be explained by dierential eects of geography (as captured by latitude) and religion (as
proxied by Protestantism).
41
The most important alternative hypothesis is that, for other reasons, treated and untreated
areas were on dierential growth trends, and these latent dierential trends account for the
patterns documented in our empirical work. The lack of pre-existing trends in the country-
level results bodes against this interpretation, but it does not entirely dismiss it. The reason
is that, if the second half of the 19th century is the age of industry, it is possible that latent
dierences between treated and untreated areas should have exhibited themselves during this
time period. Although such an interpretation is theoretically possible, it is also essentially
impossible to test empirically unless the latent variables are specied.
One possibility could be coal reserves which would enable rapid industrialization. Presence
of coal reserves would have little eect before the second half of the 19th century, but may play
a crucial role thereafter. If coal reserves diered signicantly between treated and untreated
areas, this could be an alternative explanation. Nevertheless, we nd no evidence that this has
been the case.
In contrast to the country-level evidence, the city-level results show some evidence for
pre-existing trends. This is potentially concerning for us, and suggests that we need to look
in greater detail for potential omitted factors in the within Germany analysis. Part of the
reason for the more complex pattern from the within Germany analysis may be that even
the untreated cities in Germany were aected by the French Revolution, because of brief
occupation by Napoleon or because of defensive modernizationto be able to cope with the
French assaultas in Prussia. This is a topic we would like to investigate in greater detail in
future.
7.3 Within Germany Dierences
Let us now use our framework to think about how changes brought by the Revolution and
Napoleon had a major economic impact in the Rhineland. Institutions changed profoundly in
many parts of Germany, but as discussed above, the greatest impact was in the Rhineland,
which was conquered by the Revolutionary armies and remained under French control for 20
years.
39
The Rhineland, more than any other part of German-speaking Europe, experienced
39
There is controversy about where the real changes were greater. Simms (2004. pp. 32-33) notes that
Perhaps the most radical changes took place in the newly created model and satellite states under more or
less direct French control. In the Grand Duchy of Berg, created in 1806 and ruled by Napoleons brother-in-law
Joaquim Murat, all subjects were made equal before the law and the Code Napolon and the French Code
Pnal were introduced. Similar measures were undertaken in the Kingdom of Westphalia, which was ruled by
Napoleons brother Jerome . . . But the newly inated states .. were not far behind. Here reformers such as Max
Montgelas in Bavaria or Sigismund von Reitzenstein in Baden drew on familiar models of reform ... enriched by
42
the full impact of the forces unleashed by the French Revolution of 1789. Its legacy, as subse-
quently institutionalized and codied by Napoleon, lasted for a surprisingly long time in this
region. The Napoleonic civil codes survived in the Prussian Rheinprovinz until 1900 Rowe
(1999, p. 643).
40
Of these changes, probably the abolition of guilds was the most signicant. When the
French rst arrived, cotton manufacturing ... was conned to small concerns in Rheydt and
Gladbach. By the time they left, it had multiplied both in scope and volume . . . Symbolic
was the establishment of a spinning-jenny in Cologne in 1797, which evoked the agonized and
predictable complaint from the guilds that the new machine could spin as much yarn as all the
human spinners in the city put together. Under the old regime their opposition would have
been decisive, but in the bracing new climate of laissez-faire, it was the guilds themselves that
perished Blanning (1983, p. 149). Blanning continues (pp. 149-150): The same pattern
was repeated in several towns of the Ror department, most notably in Aachen, where the
liberation of business enterprise from the restrictive practices of the guilds also led to a textile
boom.
Kisch (1989, p. 20) conrms this:
41
Apart from the accidental happenings ... there were those measures to be accounted
for, which, once enacted by the French authorities, strengthened the regions in-
stitutions of capitalist growth for decades to come. The nal removement of guild
regulations that thus far had acted as a stranglehold on the economic advance of
the imperial cities, was one of those progressive edicts. No less salutary for the
future of Cologne and Aachen was the elimination of the social and economic dis-
abilities which, throughout most of the 18th century, had stymied the activities of
non-Catholicsnamely, Protestants and Jews.
the French example . . . Between 1800 and 1805 most Rheinbund states introduced religious equality before the
law, largely standardized taxation and conscription, religious toleration (at least of Christians), the abolition of
internal customs dues, bureaucratic rationality . . . The corporate assemblies or estates which so constrained
18th century princes were dissolved with French connivance; the expropriated imperial knights and counts ..
lost their autonomous political status. However, there is also substantial anecodotal evidence to indicate that
in the Reinbund many reforms were more nominal than real (e.g., Schmitt, 1983). As for the rulers of the pays
allies in the Confederation of the Rhine, many of them failed to introduce any reforms, while others tended to
adopt only part. (Grab, 2003, p. 25).
40
Sperber (1989, p. 200) writes, Of all the regions of Central Europe, the Rhineland was the one most
aected by the French Revolution.
41
Kisch (1989) also discusses the disruptive impacts on the Rhineland of the wars and the expulsion from
traditional markets, as well as the positive market eects on the textile industry which came from incorporation
into France after 1802a market with no competition from the British.
43
Another momentous event of this revolutionary age was the conscation of church
lands and their subsequent method of redistribution. At the time, the French
authorities were hard pressed for revenue and consequently decided to dispose of
the extensive morte main quickly and in large units. Under the circumstances,
only well-to-do peasants and particularly rich merchants and manufacturers with
cash in hand were in a position to avail themselves of the favorable terms. . . the
consequences of these dealings proved to be far-reaching. There came to be a
dramatic shift of wealth and income in favor of the property-owing bourgeoisie ..
the holdings became collateral for credit with which to nance the expansion and
modernization of their plants, which in turn was to herald the local advent of the
industrial revolution.
This argument is reminiscent of Tawneys (1941) argument that the dissolution of the
monasteries under Henry VIII, and the subsequent sale of land, helped strengthen the gentry
(non-noble landowners) and shifted the balance of economic power in a way that, over time,
undermined the political basis of absolute rule.
Kisch also discusses the favorable eects of abolishing aristocratic privileges: The culmi-
nation of all these reforms was the introduction of the code Napoleon. It is generally recognized
that Napoleons brainchild brought to this region and its inhabitants an up-to-date legal sys-
tem conspicuous for its favoring capitalist property and entrepreneurial initiative. If industrial
development under free enterprise required a propitious setting, this was certainly the proper
framework. The Rhinelanders were never in doubt about the benets that were being con-
ferred upon them and they staunchly defended the Civil Code when their Prussian masters
later considered dismantling it (1989, pp. 20-21).
42
This also gives us a potential reason for why the reforms of the French Revolution were not
reversed, or perhaps were not even reversible. As Emsley (2003, pp. 62-63) argues:
Yet on the left bank of the Rhine, in the departments annexed to France during
the revolutionary decade, the Code became rmly entrenched. Indeed, it was so
well entrenched that, after 1815, the Rhenish elite successfully preserved the Code
and resisted attempts of their new Prussian masters to introduce the Prussian
Allgemeines Landrecht.
42
See Sperber (1989) and (1991) for details on the Rhinelanders tried (and succeeded for a long while) to hold
onto the Code Napoleon and other progressive aspects of the French legacy.
44
The reason for this is similar to the argument in Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson (2005a)
that once a nascent social group becomes suciently rich and powerful, it will have greater
ability to impose its political wishes in the political sphere. In Acemoglu, Johnson and Robin-
son (2005a), the nascent social group was the new group of merchants previously not allied
with the crown in Britain and the Netherlands. Once they became enriched by Atlantic trade,
they gained further political power, and eventually managed to change the institutions from
absolutism to constitutional monarchy, much more respective of their property rights. In the
case of the Rhineland, the social group in question is again a new class of entrepreneurs, which
became enriched and strengthened by the new rules (economic institutions) imposed by the
French Revolution. Once this social group gained some political power, they were likely to be
a formidable barrier against attempts to undo the economic institutions. Our conjecture is
that this social group played a key role in the persistence of the institutions introduced by the
French Revolution. Simms (2004, p. 39) sums this up as:
In western and southern Germany there was no going back to the feudal status quo
ante. The Prussian bureaucrats arriving in the newly acquired Rhine Province in
1815 found a population determined to hold onto the French law .. In southern Ger-
many the old corporate representations had permanently given way to parliaments
whose lower houses were largely elected on the basis of a property franchise; and
by 1820 all southern German states had constitutions guaranteeing freedom of con-
science and equality before the law ... The genie of the reform movementfreedom
of movement, the standardization of taxation, the abolition of guildscould not
be put back in the bottle.
8 Conclusion
The French Revolution of 1789 had a momentous impact on France and its neighboring coun-
tries. The Revolution violently toppled the established regime, and started a complex process,
involving both the infamous French Terror and also radical institutional changes, including the
abolition of the remnants of feudalism in agriculture, the reduction of the power of the nobility
and the clergy, the abolition of guilds and internal taris, the establishment of equality before
the law for all citizens and the reorganization of the state.
More importantly for the focus of this paper, the French Revolutionary armies, and later
Napoleon, invaded and controlled Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland, and parts of
45
Germany. In all of these places, the Revolution undertook essentially the same radical political,
legal, and economic reforms as in France. However, invasion by the French Revolutionary
armies (and later by Napoleon) also came with chaos and the exploitation of the occupied
territories (creating substantial resentment in many areas, particularly in Germany).
Despite the very large literature on the causes and consequences of the French Revolution,
there has been little investigation into the long-run implications of institutional changes brought
about by the French Revolution. This paper is an attempt in this direction and it exploits
the imposition of institutions by French armies on neighboring countries as a quasi-natural
experiment.
The evidence suggests that both at the country and at the city-level, areas that underwent
institutional reforms of the French Revolution, undermining the power of rural and urban
oligarchies, experienced more rapid economic growth, urbanization, and industrialization, es-
pecially after 1850. This pattern is fairly robust when we look at cross-country data on urban-
ization, though less robust with GDP per capita or industrial production per capita. We also
nd the same pattern exploiting the dierential population growth of cities that underwent
institutional reform under French Revolutionary armies or under Napoleon, though in this
case, there is some evidence of pre-existing trends that make us less condent of the impact of
the Revolution-induced institutional reforms.
These ndings are interesting for the debate amongst economic historians about the impact
of the Revolution and also have implications for important debates surrounding the role of
institutions in society. First, contrary to the assertions of many economists, it contradicts
the idea that institutions eciently adapt to a societys characteristics. If this were true an
exogenous change in institutions would not promote prosperity. Second, it provides no support
to the hypothesis, going back to Burke and Hayek, that institutions which evolve naturally
are intrinsically superior to those that are rationally designed. Third, it shows that institutions
can be transplanted in ways that are not tailored to local characteristics. It is hard to think of
the institutions imposed by French armies as appropriate but the evidence we have presented
here nevertheless shows that they probably led to more rapid economic growth. Finally, the
evidence shows that the imposition of the French Civil Code, had positive eects, at least
relative to the pre-existing legal institutions. Given recent debates on the adverse eects of
the Civil Code this nding might be regarded as surprising.
The possible positive evidence is consistent with our starting hypothesis. In particular, we
46
hypothesized that the radical institutional reforms brought about by the French Revolution
should have had long-run benecial eects because they destroyed the power of oligarchies
and elites opposed to economic change. This combined with the arrival of new economic and
industrial opportunities in the second half of the 19th century likely paved the way for rapid
growth in areas beneting from these institutional reforms. The evidence we present is broadly
consistent with this pattern, but much more detailed investigations are necessary to show the
robustness of our results and also check the mechanisms and our interpretation. Nevertheless,
it also has to be emphasized that the evidence we present is not absolutely conclusive and more
research remains to be done to understand the long-run economic implications of the French
Revolution and other major episodes of institutional change.
47
9 Data Appendix
To be completed
48
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53
Whole Sample
Treated Untreated Treated Untreated
Country Level Variables
Urbanization 0.13 0.22 0.11 0.22 0.10
(0.11) (0.14) (0.08) (0.14) (0.08)
GDP per capita 6.98 7.35 6.88 7.29 6.87
(0.54) (0.52) (0.49) (0.51) (0.50)
Industrial production per capit 3.12 3.50 3.00 4.00 3.00
(1.23) (1.21) (1.22) (1.18) (1.24)
City Level Variable
City Population 2.58 2.62 2.57 2.61 2.55
(1.21) (1.18) (1.21) (1.20) (2.21)
Mean values; standard deviation in parentheses
Conquest by
Revolutionary Armies
Controlled by
Napoleon
Table 1
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
French Revolution x 1750 -0.007 -0.007 -0.002 -0.003
(0.04) (0.05) (0.04) (0.04)
French Revolution x 1800 -0.018 -0.02 -0.01 -0.01
(0.04) (0.05) (0.04) (0.04)
French Revolution x 1850 0.02 0.02 0.026 0.02 0.035 0.033 0.032 0.03
(0.02) (0.03) (0.017) (0.03) (0.01) (0.02) (0.016) (0.03)
French Revolution x 1913 0.16 0.15 0.13 0.13 0.19 0.18 0.16 0.16
(0.05) (0.05) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04) (0.04)
p-value for test joint significance [0.01] [0.01] [0.004] [0.003] [0.00] [0.00] [0.005] [0.01]
interactions 1850-1913
French Revolution x 1750 -0.006 -0.007 -0.001 -0.002
(0.03) (0.04) (0.03) (0.03)
French Revolution x 1800 -0.017 -0.018 -0.01 -0.009
(0.03) (0.04) (0.03) (0.03)
French Revolution x 1850 0.02 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.03 0.029 0.030 0.02
(0.02) (0.03) (0.02) (0.03) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02)
French Revolution x 1913 0.16 0.15 0.13 0.13 0.19 0.18 0.17 0.17
(0.05) (0.05) (0.04) (0.04) (0.03) (0.03) (0.04) (0.04)
p-value for test joint significance [0.004] [0.004] [0.001] [0.001] [0.00] [0.00] [0.002] [0.01]
interactions 1850-1913
Number of Countries 23 23 22 22 22 22 14 14
Number of Observations 161 161 152 152 154 154 98 98
Table 2
Dependent variable is urbanization (percent of population in cities)
Country level data; all regressions have full set of country and year dummies. Robust standard errors, clustered by country. Base sample is all West
and East European countries for which we have data (except France). Countries conquered by Revolutionary armies are: Belgium, Germany, Italy,
Netherlands, and Switerland. Countries controlled by Napoleon are same plus Spain. Data are for 1300, 1400, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1750, 1800, 1850,
and 1913, from Bairoch (1988); cities need population of at least 5,000 to enter dataset.
Panel A: Impact of French Revolution is Conquest by Revolutionary Armies
Panel B: Impact of French Revolution is Controlled by Napoleon
1300-1913
Balanced panel, unweighted
Country Level Impact of French Revolution: Urbanization
Base Sample, without
UK Base Sample
Western Europe, without
UK
Base Sample, without
Italy
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
French Revolution x 1700 0.08 0.16 0.10 0.07
(0.13) (0.13) (0.13) (0.13)
French Revolution x 1820 -0.002 0.08 0.02 -0.03
(0.10) (0.06) (0.10) (0.11)
French Revolution x 1850 0.05 0.07 0.12 0.18 0.07 0.10 0.07 0.08
(0.08) (0.12) (0.04) (0.06) (0.08) (0.12) (0.09) (0.13)
French Revolution x 1870 0.17 0.19 0.28 0.34 0.2 0.23 0.18 0.19
(0.13) (0.16) (0.08) (0.07) (0.12) (0.16) (0.14) (0.17)
French Revolution x 1890 0.16 0.18 0.30 0.36 0.19 0.22 0.18 0.19
(0.17) (0.20) (0.12) (0.10) (0.17) (0.20) (0.18) (0.21)
French Revolution x 1900 0.14 0.16 0.30 0.35 0.17 0.20 0.15 0.16
(0.19) (0.22) (0.14) (0.12) (0.19) (0.22) (0.21) (0.23)
p-value for joint post-revolution tes [0.07] [0.07] [0.01] [0.0003] [0.03] [0.03] [0.13] [0.13]
using all interactions 1850-1900
Panel B: Impact of French Revolution is Controlled by Napoleon
French Revolution x 1700 0.05 0.11 0.07 0.03
(0.11) (0.11) (0.11) (0.11)
French Revolution x 1820 -0.016 0.05 0.007 -0.06
(0.09) (0.06) (0.09) (0.09)
French Revolution x 1850 0.002 0.01 0.05 0.09 0.02 0.04 0.01 0.01
(0.08) (0.12) (0.07) (0.10) (0.08) (0.11) (0.09) (0.13)
French Revolution x 1870 0.10 0.11 0.17 0.21 0.136 0.16 0.098 0.09
(0.13) (0.16) (0.12) (0.13) (0.12) (0.15) (0.13) (0.16)
French Revolution x 1890 0.10 0.11 0.20 0.24 0.13 0.15 0.12 0.11
(0.15) (0.18) (0.13) (0.14) (0.15) (0.18) (0.17) (0.20)
French Revolution x 1900 0.08 0.08 0.18 0.22 0.11 0.12 0.08 0.07
(0.17) (0.20) (0.15) (0.16) (0.17) (0.19) (0.19) (0.21)
p-value for joint post-revolution tes [0.03] [0.08] [0.07] [0.13] [0.03] [0.08] [0.07] [0.06]
using all interactions 1850-1900
Number of Countries 22 22 21 21 21 21 14 14
Number of Observations 174 174 166 166 166 166 112 112
Country level data; all regressions have full set of country and year dummies. Robust standard errors, clustered by country. Base sample is all
West and East European countries for which we have data (except France). Countries conquered by Revolutionary armies are: Belgium, Germany,
Italy, Netherlands, and Switerland. Countries controlled by Napoleon are same plus Spain. Data are for 1500, 1600, 1700, 1820, 1850, 1870, 1890
and 1900, from Maddison (2003).
Western Europe, without
UK Base Sample
Base Sample, without
UK
Base Sample,
without Italy
Table 3
Country Level Impact of French Revolution: GDP per capita
Dependent variable is log GDP per capita
1500-1900
Unbalanced panel, unweighted
Panel A: Impact of French Revolution is Conquest by Revolutionary Armies
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8)
French Revolution x 1800 0.05 0.08 0.08 0.08
(0.08) (0.09) (0.07) (0.08)
French Revolution x 1830 0.13 0.15 0.19 0.22 0.17 0.21 0.18 0.21
(0.14) (0.18) (0.16) (0.20) (0.13) (0.17) (0.14) (0.18)
French Revolution x 1860 0.27 0.29 0.37 0.41 0.35 0.39 0.32 0.36
(0.24) (0.27) (0.25) (0.29) (0.22) (0.25) (0.23) (0.26)
French Revolution x 1880 0.33 0.36 0.48 0.52 0.42 0.46 0.38 0.41
(0.29) (0.32) (0.29) (0.32) (0.27) (0.30) (0.29) (0.32)
French Revolution x 1900 0.50 0.53 0.68 0.72 0.58 0.62 0.53 0.56
(0.31) (0.34) (0.29) (0.33) (0.30) (0.33) (0.33) (0.36)
French Revolution x 1913 0.59 0.62 0.76 0.80 0.66 0.70 0.62 0.65
(0.33) (0.35) (0.33) (0.36) (0.32) (0.35) (0.36) (0.39)
p-values for test joint significance
1) interactions 1830-1913 [0.08] [0.09] [0.10] [0.10] [0.01] [0.01] [0.26] [0.28]
2) interactions 1860-1913 [0.05] [0.06] [0.08] [0.10] [0.03] [0.04] [0.19] [0.23]
French Revolution x 1800 0.03 0.05 0.07 0.06
(0.07) (0.08) (0.06) (0.07)
French Revolution x 1830 0.11 0.13 0.16 0.18 0.16 0.19 0.17 0.20
(0.12) (0.16) (0.13) (0.17) (0.12) (0.14) (0.12) (0.15)
French Revolution x 1860 0.24 0.25 0.32 0.34 0.33 0.36 0.31 0.33
(0.21) (0.25) (0.22) (0.26) (0.19) (0.21) (0.20) (0.23)
French Revolution x 1880 0.28 0.3 0.39 0.42 0.38 0.41 0.33 0.36
(0.26) (0.29) (0.27) (0.30) (0.24) (0.27) (0.27) (0.29)
French Revolution x 1900 0.42 0.44 0.55 0.58 0.51 0.54 0.45 0.48
(0.29) (0.31) (0.29) (0.32) (0.27) (0.30) (0.31) (0.34)
French Revolution x 1913 0.47 0.49 0.58 0.60 0.54 0.57 0.49 0.52
(0.31) (0.34) (0.34) (0.36) (0.31) (0.33) (0.36) (0.39)
p-values for test joint significance
1) interactions 1830-1913 [0.20] [0.20] [0.10] [0.09] [0.01] [0.01] [0.25] [0.26]
2) interactions 1860-1913 [0.20] [0.26] [0.17] [0.23] [0.07] [0.12] [0.22] [0.31]
Number of Countries 20 20 19 19 19 19 13 13
Number of Observations 140 140 133 133 133 133 91 91
1750-1913
Western Europe, without
UK
Balanced panel, unweighted
Base Sample, without
UK
Base Sample, without
Italy
Panel A: Impact of French Revolution is Conquest by Revolutionary Armies
Panel B: Impact of French Revolution is Controlled by Napoleon
Table 4
Country Level Impact of French Revolution: Industrial Production
Dependent variable is log industrial production per capita
Base Sample
Country level data; all regressions have full set of country and year dummies. Robust standard errors, clustered by country. Base
sample is all West and East European countries for which we have data (except France). Countries conquered by Revolutionary
armies are: Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, and Switerland. Countries controlled by Napoleon are same plus Spain. Data are
for 1750, 1800, 1830, 1860, 1880, 1900 and 1913, from Bairoch (1982).
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
1300-1913 1500-1913
French Revolution x 1850 0.036 0.02 0.02 0.02
(0.015) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02)
French Revolution x 1913 0.13 0.12 0.13 0.12
(0.04) (0.05) (0.04) (0.05)
p-values for test joint significance [0.001] [0.05] [0.003] [0.04]
p-values for test joint significance
1) urbanization in 1300 x year [0.001]
2) urbanization in 1500 x year [0.00]
3) latitude x year [0.04]
4) Protestant x year [0.3]
French Revolution x post x linear trend 1.89
(0.58)
Panel B: Impact of French Revolution is Controlled by Napoleon
French Revolution x 1850 0.03 0.02 0.02 0.02
(0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02)
French Revolution x 1913 0.16 0.14 0.15 0.13
(0.04) (0.04) (0.03) (0.04)
p-values for test joint significance [0.0001] [0.001] [0.0001] [0.003]
p-values for test joint significance
1) urbanization in 1300 x year [0.0002]
2) urbanization in 1500 x year [0.00]
3) latitude x year [0.02]
4) Protestant x year [0.02]
French Revolution x post x linear trend 1.95
(0.58)
Number of Countries 23 23 23 23 23
Number of Observations 159 136 159 159 159
Panel A: Impact of French Revolution is Conquest by Revolutionary Armies
Country level data; all regressions have full set of country and year dummies. Robust standard errors,
clustered by country. Base sample is all West and East European countries for which we have data
(except France). Countries conquered by Revolutionary armies are: Belgium, Germany, Italy,
Netherlands, and Switerland. Countries controlled by Napoleon are same plus Spain. Data are for 1300,
1400, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1750, 1800, 1850, and 1913, from Bairoch (1988); cities need population of at
least 5,000 to enter dataset. In columns 5 and 10, the coefficients are multiplied by 1000 to make them
easier to display.
1300-1913
Balanced panel, unweighted
Base Sample
Table 5
Country Level Impact of French Revolution: Robustness Checks
Dependent variable is urbanization (percent of population in cities)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Affected by French Revolution 0.12 0.11 0.23
x 1800 year dummy (0.11) (0.11) (0.11)
Affected by French Revolution -0.03 -0.02 0.20
x 1818 year dummy (0.15) (0.14) (0.15)
Affected by French Revolution 0.27 0.30 0.24 0.27 0.21 0.32
x 1850 year dummy (0.09) (0.13) (0.09) (0.13) (0.10) (0.13)
Affected by French Revolution 0.07 0.09 0.02 0.05 -0.01 0.10
x 1871 year dummy (0.29) (0.33) (0.29) (0.33) (0.33) (0.37)
Affected by French Revolution 0.15 0.18 0.11 0.14 0.14 0.25
x 1900 year dummy (0.16) (0.19) (0.15) (0.19) (0.18) (0.21)
p-value for test joint significance [0.001] [0.001] [0.002] [0.001] [0.04] [0.004]
interactions 1850-1900
Affected by French Revolution 0.17 0.12 0.18
x 1800 year dummy (0.08) (0.07) (0.08)
Affected by French Revolution 0.09 0.10 0.25
x 1818 year dummy (0.14) (0.11) (0.10)
Affected by French Revolution 0.16 0.25 0.07 0.14 0.03 0.14
x 1850 year dummy (0.07) (0.10) (0.06) (0.08) (0.07) (0.09)
Affected by French Revolution 0.29 0.37 0.08 0.14 -0.02 0.09
x 1871 year dummy (0.19) (0.21) (0.18) (0.19) 0.22 (0.23)
Affected by French Revolution 0.26 0.33 0.10 0.16 0.09 0.19
x 1900 year dummy (0.13) (0.15) (0.12) (0.14) (0.14) (0.15)
p-value for test joint significance [0.08] [0.08] [0.66] [0.43] [0.90] [0.44]
interactions 1850-1900
Number of Cities 186 186 240 240 348 348
Number of Observations 860 860 1102 1102 74 74
1700-1910
Unbalanced panel, unweighted regressions
Panel A: French Revolution Impact is Conquest by Revolutionary Armies
Panel B: French Revolution Impact is Controlled by Napoleon
Table 6
City level data; all regressions have full set of city and year dummies; robust standard errors; base sample data are for 1700,
1750, 1800, 1818, 1850, 1871, and 1900. Base sample is Germany west of the Elbe and Saale rivers. Control group is all
cities without indicated impact. Urban population from Bairoch, Batou and Chevre (for 1600, 1700, 1750, 1800, and 1850);
from Lahmeyer for 1818, 1871, and 1900, with all available data from Mitchell. Cities are those within present day borders
of Germany (from Bairoch dataset). Cities conquered by Revolutionary armies are the West Bank of the Rhine; additional
cities controlled by Napoleon are satellite states on East Bank of Rhine, plus area in northern Germany annexed to France.
Saxony and Mecklenberg
as control group Base Sample All of Germany
City Level Impact of French Revolution in Germany: Extended Dataset
Dependent variable is log city population
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Affected by French Revolution 0.32 0.23 0.28 0.3 0.2 0.26
x 1850 year dummy (0.11) (0.09) (0.09) (0.11) (0.09) (0.09)
Affected by French Revolution 0.17 -0.02 0.07 0.09 -0.05 0.04
x 1871 year dummy (0.22) (0.30) (0.29) (0.24) (0.29) (0.28)
Affected by French Revolution 0.14 0.11 0.13 0.13 0.08 0.10
x 1900 year dummy (0.20) (0.16) (0.16) (0.19) (0.15) (0.15)
p-value for test of joint significance
1850-1900 [0.001] [0.01] [0.001] [0.0004] [0.01] [0.001]
Initial city population x year dummies [0.001] [0.01]
Protestant x year dummies [0.002] [0.01]
Latitude x year dummies [0.17] [0.01]
Affected by French Revolution 0.29 0.05 0.19 0.17 -0.001 0.06
x 1850 year dummy (0.08) (0.07) (0.08) (0.07) (0.06) (0.06)
Affected by French Revolution 0.19 0.006 0.39 -0.03 -0.097 0.02
x 1871 year dummy (0.16) (0.13) (0.30) (0.15) (0.18) (0.20)
Affected by French Revolution 0.33 0.20 0.34 0.22 0.05 0.11
x 1900 year dummy (0.15) (0.15) (0.16) (0.13) (0.13) (0.12)
p-value for test of joint significance
1850-1900 [0.004] [0.52] [0.07] [0.05] [0.86] [0.68]
Initial city population x year dummies [0.03] [0.005]
Protestant x year dummies [0.002] [0.006]
Latitude x year dummies [0.19] [0.03]
Number of Observations 771 771 771 904 904 904
Number of Cities 240 240 240 240 240 240
Panel A: French Revolution Impact is Occupied by Revolutionary Armies (West Bank of Rhine)
Panel B: French Revolution Impact is Controlled by Napoleon
City level data; all regressions have full set of city and year dummies; robust standard errors; base sample data are for 1700,
1750, 1800, 1818, 1850, 1871, and 1900. Base sample is Germany west of the Elbe and Saale rivers. Control group is all cities
without indicated impact. Urban population from Bairoch, Batou and Chevre (for 1600, 1700, 1750, 1800, and 1850); from
Lahmeyer for 1818, 1871, and 1900, with all available data from Mitchell. Cities are those within present day borders of
Germany (from Bairoch dataset). Cities conquered by Revolutionary armies are the West Bank of the Rhine; additional cities
controlled by Napoleon are satellite states on East Bank of Rhine, plus area in northern Germany annexed to France.
Unweighted regressions; unbalanced panel
Base Sample All of Germany
City Level Impact of French Revolution in Germany: robustness checks using Extended Dataset
Dependent variable is log city population
Table 7
1700-1850
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
French Revolution x 1750 0.13 0.10 0.1
(0.15) (0.14) (0.16)
French Revolution x 1800 0.20 0.18 0.29
(0.18) (0.17) (0.18)
French Revolution x 1850 0.25 0.38 0.22 0.33 0.23 0.38
(0.11) (0.21) (0.10) (0.20) (0.11) (0.21)
Number of Cities 186 186 240 240 74 74
Number of Observations 595 595 771 771 245 245
French Revolution x 1750 0.07 0.024 0.01
(0.10) (0.10) (0.11)
French Revolution x 1800 0.23 0.14 0.20
(0.12) (0.11) (0.11)
French Revolution x 1850 0.17 0.30 0.09 0.16 0.06 0.16
(0.08) (0.14) (0.07) (0.12) (0.07) (0.12)
Number of Cities 189 189 245 245 181 181
Number of Observations 606 606 788 788 581 581
Table 8
City Level Impact of French Revolution in Germany: Bairoch Dataset
Dependent variable is log urban population
Panel A: French Revolution Impact is Occupied by Revolutionary Armies (West Bank of Rhine)
Panel B: French Revolution Impact is Controlled by Napoleon
City level data; all regressions have full set of city and year dummies; robust standard errors, clustered by city. Data are for 1700,
1750, 1800, and 1850; from Bairoch, Batou and Chevre. Base sample is Germany west of the Elbe and Saale rivers. Control group
is all cities without indicated impact. Urban population from Bairoch, Batou and Chevre (for 1600, 1700, 1750, 1800, and 1850);
from Lahmeyer for 1818, 1871, and 1900, with all available data from Mitchell. Cities are those within present day borders of
Germany (from Bairoch dataset). Cities conquered by Revolutionary armies are the West Bank of the Rhine; additional cities
controlled by Napoleon are satellite states on East Bank of Rhine, plus area in northern Germany annexed to France.
Base Sample
1700-1850
Unbalanced panel, unweighted
All of Germany
Saxony and Mecklenberg
as control group
Figure 1A: Urbanization in Europe,
1300-1913
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
1300 1500 1700 1750 1800 1850 1913
Controlled by Napoleon Not Controlled by Napoleon
Figure 1B: Urbanization in Western
Europe, 1300-1913
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
1300 1500 1700 1750 1800 1850 1913
Controlled by Napoleon Not Controlled by Napoleon
Figure 2A: GDP per capita in Europe,
1500-1900
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
1500 1600 1700 1820 1850 1870 1890 1900
Controlled by Napoleon Not Controlled by Napoleon
Figure 2B: Log GDP per capita in
Europe, 1500-1900
6
6.5
7
7.5
8
8.5
1500 1600 1700 1820 1850 1870 1890 1900
Controlled by Napoleon Not Controlled by Napoleon
Figure 2C: Log GDP per capita in
Western Europe, 1500-1900
6
6.5
7
7.5
8
8.5
1500 1600 1700 1820 1850 1870 1890 1900
Controlled by Napoleon Not Controlled by Napoleon
Figure 3A: Industrial Production per
capita in Europe, 1750-1913
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
1750 1800 1830 1860 1880 1900 1913
Controlled by Napoleon Not controlled by Napoleon
Figure 3B: Log Industrial Production
per capita in Europe, 1750-1913
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
1750 1800 1830 1860 1880 1900 1913
Controlled by Napoleon Not controlled by Napoleon
Figure 3C: Log Industrial Production
per capita, Western Europe, 1750-1913
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
1750 1800 1830 1860 1880 1900 1913
Controlled by Napoleon Not controlled by Napoleon
Figure 4A: Log urban population in
Germany (West of Elbe), 1700-1900
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
1700 1750 1800 1818 1850 1900
Controlled by Napoleon Not Controlled by Napoleon
Figure 4B: Log urban population in all
Germany,1700-1900
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
1700 1750 1800 1818 1850 1900
Controlled by Napoleon Not Controlled by Napoleon