Steam Beyond the Gateways: Steamship Connectivity and Industrial Entry in China
Keywords:
steamship, industrialization, technology diffusion, treaty ports, ChinaAbstract
Steamships were the first Western transport technology to diffuse widely in China, entering through treaty ports but later spreading beyond them. Using a prefecture-decade panel of 284 prefectures from 1840 to 1927, I find that prefectures gaining steamship connections saw substantially more modern industrial entry, concentrated in trade-intensive sectors. The results are robust to pre-steamship economic fundamentals and competing technologies, and are supported by a shift-share instrument based on hypothetical steamship-navigable access to early treaty ports. Foreign trade responded almost immediately, while native banking and industrial entry expanded gradually over subsequent decades, consistent with commercial deepening accompanying industrial entry.
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- The Areas of Excellence Scheme (Project Reference No. AoE/B-704/22-R) from the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong
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Research Grants Council of Hong Kong
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The Areas of Excellence Scheme
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