Stephan Heblich

Slavery and the British Industrial Revolution

Did overseas slave-holding by Britons accelerate the Industrial Revolution? Stephan Heblich and his collaborators have contributed a new theory and evidence to this long-standing discussion by utilizing newly available granular data on the location of slaveholders within Britain collected under the terms of the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act. They combined these data on the spatial distribution of slavery wealth with rich geographic information on economic activity in Britain before and after its entry into transatlantic slavery in the 1560s. The researchers show that areas with exogenously more slavery wealth grew faster, experienced more structural change, developed more mills and factories, and adopted more steam engines. They rationalized these findings using a dynamic spatial model, in which slavery wealth stimulates domestic capital accumulation, and hence expands production in capital-intensive sectors.

Mr. Heblich’s research looks at spatial disparities in the distribution of consumptive or productive amenities that attract individuals or firms. This helps explain spatial variation in house prices, the share of high-skilled workers, environmental (dis)amenities, innovative activities, political outcomes, or economic development. Mr. Heblich is passionate about economic history since often the best way to understand present-day outcomes is to study the past and the legacies of historic developments.

During his stay at CESifo, Mr. Heblich is planning to explore with Oliver Falck mobile phone data for Munich and possibly beyond that will allow them to look at new dimensions of individual commuting behavior and the organization of cities. The high frequency of mobile phone data provides detailed insights into individual commuting mode and route choices. In addition, they will be able to look at stops during the daily commute for e.g. shopping and/or leisure. They regard mobile phone data as a comprehensive travel diary that provides detailed insights into firm and worker location decisions and transport mode choices. Analyzing these data will provide new insights into the internal structure of cities.

Stephan Heblich is Professor and Munk Chair of Economics at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto in Canada, with a cross-appointment to the Department of Economics. He is also a research Associate at the NBER and an affiliate with CEP, CESifo, IfW Kiel and IZA. Previously, he worked at the University of Bristol and the University of Stirling. His doctorate in Economics is from the University of Passau and his Habilitation from the University of Jena. He is currently a co-editor at the Journal of Urban Economics and an associate editor at the Economic Journal, Regional Science and Urban Economics, and the Journal of Economic Geography.