TY  - JOUR
AU  - Long,J. Bradford De
AU  - Shleifer,Andrei
TI  - Princes and Merchants:  European City Growth before the Industrial Revolution
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 4274
PY  - 1993
Y2  - February 1993
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4274
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4274.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
J. Bradford DeLong
Department of Economics
601 Evans Hall
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
Tel: 510/643-4027
Fax: 510/642-6615
E-Mail: delong@econ.berkeley.edu

Andrei Shleifer
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Center M-9
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-5046
Fax: 617/496-1708
E-Mail: ashleifer@harvard.edu
AB  - As measured by the pace of city growth in western Europe from 1000 to 1800. absolutist monarchs stunted the growth of commerce and industry. A region ruled by an absolutist prince saw its total urban population shrink by one hundred thousand people per century relative to a region without absolutist government. This might be explained by higher rates of taxation under revenue-maximizing absolutist governments than under non-absolutist governments. which care more about general economic prosperity and less about State revenue.
ER  -