Early Globalization and the Law of One Price: Evidence from Sweden, 1732-1914

Mario Crucini () and Gregor Smith

East Asian Economic Review, 2016, vol. 20, issue 4, 427-445

Abstract: We review research using departures from the law of one price to measure the advent of globalization in Europe and Asia. In an application, we then study the role of distance and time in statistically explaining price dispersion across 32 Swedish towns for 19 commodities from 1732 to 1914. The resulting large number of relative prices (502,689) allows precise estimation of distance and time effects, and their interaction. We find an effect of distance that declines significantly over time, beginning in the 18th century, well before the arrival of canals, the telegraph, or the railway.

Keywords: Distance Effect; Law of One Price; Globalization; Historical Price Convergence; Market Integration in Sweden (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E37 F61 N70 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.11644/KIEP.EAER.2016.20.4.316 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:eaerev:0001

Access Statistics for this article

East Asian Economic Review is currently edited by JE Lee

More articles in East Asian Economic Review from Korea Institute for International Economic Policy [30147] 3rd Floor Building C Sejong National Research Complex 370 Sicheong-daero Sejong-si, Korea. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by JE Lee ().