Urbanisation and the Onset of Modern Economic Growth

Abstract A large literature characterises urbanisation as resulting from productivity growth attracting rural workers to cities. Incorporating economic geography elements into a model, we suggest that causation runs the other way: when move cities, produces technological change and growth. Urban density leads knowledge exchange innovation, thus creating positive feedback loop between city size initiates sustained This model is consistent with fact rates in western Europe, most notably England, reached unprecedented levels by mid-eighteenth century, eve of Industrial Revolution.