Portage: Path Dependence and Increasing Returns in U.S. History

Hoyt Bleakley, Jeffrey Lin

NBER Working Paper No. 16314
Issued in August 2010

---- Acknowledgements -----

The authors thank Nate Baum-Snow, Henry Binford, Lou Cain, Satyajit Chatterjee, Tim Conley, Bob Fogel, Gordon Hanson, Dave Haddock, Kris Mitchener, Kevin Murphy, Jordan Rappaport, Steve Redding, and Mark Wright for helpful discussions, Cristine McCollum at the FRBP library for finding several sources of data, Lauris Olsen for help with the Serial Set at Penn, Chris Winters for patient guidance through the U of C map collection, Evan Taylor and Allison Kahl for research assistance, and seminar participants at various institutions for helpful comments. The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, the Federal Reserve System, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. Financial support from the Booth School of Business and the Center for Population Economics, both at the University of Chicago, is gratefully acknowledged.

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