Coal and the European Industrial Revolution

By Alan Fernihough, Kevin H. O'Rourke. Economic Journal, 2014

124 citations recorded by the source corpus.

To what extent did growth during the Industrial Revolution depend on coal? We answer the question using a panel of European city sizes between 1300 and 1900. Prior to 1750, there was no relationship between proximity to coalfields and growth; after 1750 cities closer to coalfields grew substantially faster than those further away. We instrument for coal proximity using proximity to Carboniferous-era rock strata.

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