Location: 368A Heady Hall

Description:  Scott Taylor

"Back to the Future of Green Powered Economies"

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine how the location and productivity of available energy resources affects the spatial distribution of economic activity. More productive (power dense) resources generate far greater energy supply, stronger incentives for infrastructure investments, higher consumption per capita, and more population dense agglomerations. Using county level population data from 1086 to 1801 we investigate how England's move to the very power dense energy source represented by coal altered its economic geography. Local access to coal is responsible for over 24%of growth in all but two coal counties; and almost 40% in others. The world's first energy transition created a dramatic reshuffling of the economic landscape.

Contact Person: Quinn Weninger