Fabian Wahl

• Dr. oec.
• Assistant Professor at Vienna University of Economics and Business

This paper analyses the connection between legal origins and generalized trust. Based on recent results of institutions and trust research it argues that legal origins and trust are connected via the beliefs of agents. Next, it develops hypotheses about a complex and self-reinforcing causal relation between both. It then shows empirically that inde...

The goal of this paper is to provide an explanation for the remarkable difference in the contemporary Germans positive self-assessment of their living conditions and the development of the most important economic welfare indicators (like GDP or consumption per capita) during the Third Reich. To explain this discrepancy, findings of the new research...

Historical winegrowing shaped modern rural development, even in areas in which its cultivation was given up after the early modern period. We provide evidence for this idea from municipality level data on Southwestern German viticulture over the last 1,300 years, and find a significant link between historical winegrowing and modern economic develop...

In light of persistent regional inequalities in adaptive outcomes such as health, wellbeing, and related personality traits, psychological research is increasingly adopting a historical perspective to understand the deeper roots of these patterns. In this study, we examine the role of ancient cultures, specifically the impact of Roman civilization...

We investigate whether the development of regional disparities in entrepreneurship and innovation in Germany can be traced back to Roman rule 2,000 years ago. We find a lasting positive Roman effect on the level and quality of entrepreneurship and innovation. This effect might be due to the imprint of local hard factors, such as interregional socia...

A region's present-day economic performance can be deeply anchored in historical factors. We provide the first systematic evidence of a deep imprinting effect in the context of Roman rule in the southwestern part of Germany nearly 2,000 years ago. Our analysis reveals that regions in the former Roman part of Germany show a stronger entrepreneurship...

Did European regions industrialize first because their institutions fostered urbanization? We argue that culture, precisely an agricultural inheritance tradition that would immobilize the rural population, was no obstacle to economic growth (as commonly thought). Instead, equal partition tied excess labor to the land and fostered the establishment...

We investigate the origins of agricultural inheritance traditions, equal partition and primogeniture. Our case study is the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Our empirical findings suggest that rural inheritance traditions were primarily determined by geography. First, fertile soils allowed splitting of the land among siblings for longer and with...

This article provides evidence that smaller, regional public financial intermediaries contributed to Germany's industrial development, using a new dataset of the foundation year and location of Prussian savings banks. This extends the bank–growth nexus beyond its traditional focus on large universal banks. Since savings banks were public financial...

We investigate whether the Roman presence in the southern part of Germany nearly 2,000 years ago had a deep imprinting effect with long run consequences on a broad spectrum of measures ranging from present-day personality profiles to a number of socioeconomic outcomes and why. Today's populations living in the former Roman part of Germany score ind...

This paper evaluates the economic impact of the $14 billion preparatory infrastructure investments for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. We use satellite data on night light luminosity at municipality and electoral district level as a proxy for economic activity, applying synthetic control methods for estimation. For the average World Cup mu...

Participative political institutions in late medieval cities in the German Lands had the potential to impact city size and growth. The study confirms the positive effect on economic outcomes of participative political institutions in 282 cities, but supports a more skeptical view of craft guilds. Craft guilds participating in the city council had z...

This paper contributes to the understanding of the long-run consequences of Roman rule on economic development. In ancient times, the area of contemporary Germany was divided into a Roman and a non-Roman part. The study uses this division to test whether the formerly Roman part of Germany are more developed than the non-Roman part. This is done usi...

This study establishes a link between medieval trade, agglomeration and contemporary regional development in ten European countries. It documents a statistically and economically significant positive relationship between prominent involvement in medieval trade and regional economic development today. The analysis indicates that a long-lasting effec...

This article introduces and describes a new city-level data set on political institutions in pre-modern Europe. To be precise, it presents three variables reporting the prevalence of the different existing types of participative political institutions between AD 800 and AD 1800 in 104 cities in central Europe (Alsace-Lorrain, Austria, Belgium, Germ...

The first part of the thesis establishes a link between medieval trade, agglomeration and contemporary regional development in ten European countries. It documents a significant positive relationship between involvement in medieval trade and regional economic development today. The analysis indicates that a long-lasting effect of medieval trade on...

This study investigates the origins of guild revolts and participation in the government of late medieval central European cities. It finds that primarily structural factors and not so much exogenous factors (like the agricultural crisis or historical accidents), i.e. the prosperity of proto-industry and triggered the revolts. Medieval trade cities...

This paper contributes to the understanding of the long-run consequences of Roman rule on economic development. In ancient times, the area of contemporary Germany was divided into a Roman and non-Roman part. The study uses this division to test whether the formerly Roman part of Germany show a higher nightlight luminosity than the non-Roman part. T...

This study investigates the origins of the guild revolts in late medieval central Europe. At first, using newly compiled city level data, their temporal evolution and spatial distribution is discussed. Afterwards, the paper provides a historical discussion and empirical analysis of their origins. The results show that pre-existing city-level politi...

German Abstract: Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist es, zu erklaren, wieso die Deutschen glaubten, ihr Lebensstandard hatte sich wahrend der Friedenszeit des Dritten Reiches verbessert, wahrend die meisten okonomischen Wohlfahrtsindikatoren (wie BIP und Konsum pro Kopf) am Ende der 1930er Jahre kein hoheres Niveaus als zum Ende der Weimarer Republik...