Professional Documents
Culture Documents
June 2010
Abstract
Europe experienced a Commercial Revolution in the late Middle Ages. We present new
data that document this transformation using information on city incorporation and market
establishment. We then test whether universities played a causal role in expanding economic
activity, examining the consequences of their exogenous establishment in Germany following
the Papal Schism in 1378. We nd that the trend rate of market establishment breaks upward
just when the rst German university was established; this break is greatest where the distance
to a university shrank most. We argue that the link between universities and greater economic
activity involved the development of formal legal and administrative institutions.