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Portage and Path Dependence *
Open accessAbstract
Many cities in North America formed at obstacles to water navigation, where continued transport required overland hauling or portage . Portage sites attracted commerce and supporting services, and places where the falls provided water power attracted manufacturing during early industrialization. We examine portage sites in the U.S. South, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest, including those on the fall line , a geomorphological feature in the southeastern United States marking the final rapids on rivers before the ocean. Although their original advantages have long since become obsolete, we document the continuing importance of historical portage sites. We interpret these results as path dependence and contrast explanations based on sunk costs interacting with decreasing versus increasing returns to scale.
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“The estimated output losses are also consistent with a broader body of evidence emphasizing path dependence in economic development following large shocks (Davis and Weinstein, 2002, Brakman et. al. 2004, Bleakley and Lin 2012).”
From Confrontation with the West and Long-Run Economic and Institutional Outcomes: Evidence from Iran (2026) · cites this paper as Bleakley and Lin 2012
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Inference with dependent data using cluster covariance estimators
Bester, C. A., Conley, T. G., & Hansen, C. B. (2011) · Journal of Econometrics · doi:10.1016/j.jeconom.2011.01.007 · Cited by 258
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Metadata
- Authors
- Bleakley, H., & Lin, J.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- Venue
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2012-04-19
- Volume
- 127
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 587-644
- ISSN
- 0033-5533 (ISSN-L)
- 1531-4650
- PMC
- PMC3738199
- OpenAlex
- W1894646273
- Cited by
- 578
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 45 · 2025: 51 · 2024: 66 · 2023: 30 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 49 · 2020: 55 · 2019: 46 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 42 · 2016: 30 · 2015: 33 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 58.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- The Quarterly Journal of Economics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Aging (P01AG010120)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Agglomeration and Urban Systems
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Historical Economic and Social Studies
- Social Sciences › Development › Culture, Economy, and Development Studies
- Keywords
- path dependence, Fall Line, waterfalls, hydropower, industrialization, sunk costs, returns to scale, urban development, river navigation
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