Click here for another insightful student review of a working paper at NEP-HIS Blog. This review is by Alexander Horkan, a final-year PPE student at Queen's University. Alexander reviews a paper by Thor Berger and Kerstin Enflo which looks at the short- and long-term economic impact of railroad development in Sweden. They suggest that railroad development in the nineteenth century shapes the economic geography of present-day Sweden.
My colleague and former PhD student Gareth Campbell has created a website about the British Railway Mania - click here . This episode has been described by the Economist as probably the greatest bubble in human history. Gareth's website provides background on the Mania and posits some explanations for the 'bubble'. In his explanation of why the bubble happened, Gareth places a lot of emphasis on investor myopia regarding future dividends and uncalled capital. His study of investors during the episode does not support the view that this episode was fuelled by naive and irrational investors.