The Wind of Change: Maritime Technology, Trade, and Economic Development
利用蒸汽船引入对各国贸易距离的不对称影响，发现蒸汽船重塑了全球贸易模式，但只有制度包容的国家从中受益，且全球化是1850-1900年贫富分化的主要驱动力。
The 1870–1913 period marked the birth of the first era of trade globalization. How did this tremendous increase in trade affect economic development? This work isolates a causality channel by exploiting the fact that the introduction of the steamship in the shipping industry produced an asymmetric change in trade distances among countries. Before this invention, trade routes depended on wind patterns. The steamship reduced shipping costs and time in a disproportionate manner across countries and trade routes. Using this source of variation and novel data on shipping, trade, and development, I find that (i) the adoption of the steamship had a major impact on patterns of trade worldwide; (ii) only a small number of countries, characterized by more inclusive institutions, benefited from trade integration; and (iii) globalization was the major driver of the economic divergence between the rich and the poor portions of the world in the years 1850–1900.