Pandemics and Cities

Résumé du livre

We ask what effects a high fatality rate pandemic could have on long-run urban economic development. The Black Death killed 40% of Europe's population between 1347 and 1352, making it one of the largest shocks in the history of mankind. Using a novel dataset that provides information on spatial variation in plague mortality at the city level, as well as various identification strategies, we explore the short-run and long-run impacts of Black Death mortality on city growth. On average, cities recovered their pre-plague populations within two centuries. However, aggregate convergence masked heterogeneity in urban recovery. Both of these facts are consistent with populations returning to high-mortality locations endowed with more rural and urban fixed factors of production. Land suitability and natural and historical trade networks played a vital role in urban recovery. Our study thus highlights the role played by pandemics and physical and economic geography in determining the relative size of cities in less developed economies.