Template-Type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Title: Market Size and Spatial Growth—Evidence From Germany’s Post-war Population Expulsions: A Comment
Author-Name: Antonio Ciccone
Author-Email: antonio.ciccone@uni-mannheim.de
Author-Name: Jan Nimczik
Author-Email: jan.nimczik@esmt.org

Classification-JEL: O1,O4
Keywords: Economic growth, scale effects, productivity, population shocks, immigration

Abstract: The scale effects that have become an integral part of growth theory imply that
productivity should be increasing in population size. We use newly digitized data
to estimate the relation between GDP per worker and refugee settlements in West
Germany following the arrival of 8 million WWII refugees—more than 15% of the
West German population in 1949. Our approach builds on the county-level analysis
of the relation between GDP per capita growth and refugee settlements in Peters
(2022). As we find that his estimates do not reflect the effect on GDP per capita,
we also provide corrected per-capita estimates.

Note: 
Length: 24
Creation-Date: 2024-07
Revision-Date: 
File-URL: https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp579
File-Format: application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:bon:boncrc:CRCTR224_2024_579