Language, knowledge, and growth: evidence from early modern Europe

This paper documents a language change in printing from Latin to the vernaculars, the spoken tongues, in the immediate aftermath of the Protestant Reformation of 1517. As a result, the share of vernacular titles in Europe rose from around 30% in 1500 to almost 60% in 1600. With the increased use of...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Binzel, Christine (VerfasserIn) , Link, Andreas (VerfasserIn) , Ramachandran, Rajesh (VerfasserIn)
Dokumenttyp: Buch/Monographie
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: [S.l.] SSRN 2023
DOI:10.2139/ssrn.4381287
Online-Zugang:Verlag, kostenfrei: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4381287
Resolving-System, kostenfrei: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4381287
Volltext
Verfasserangaben:Christine BInzel, Andreas Link, Rajesh Ramachandran
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:This paper documents a language change in printing from Latin to the vernaculars, the spoken tongues, in the immediate aftermath of the Protestant Reformation of 1517. As a result, the share of vernacular titles in Europe rose from around 30% in 1500 to almost 60% in 1600. With the increased use of the vernaculars in printing, the availability of knowledge and ideas increased at the city level and became more diverse in terms of authors and themes. Finally, we study long-run consequences. Using linguistic differences across cities as a source of exogenous variation in the number of vernacular titles printed in cities, we document a positive effect of vernacular printing output on upper-tail human capital and city growth. This suggests that the turn to the vernaculars in printing was an important driver of European dynamism in the early modern period
Beschreibung:Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments January 2023 erstellt
Beschreibung:Online Resource
DOI:10.2139/ssrn.4381287
Zugangseinschränkungen:Open Access