"Identifying Agglomeration Shadows: Long-run Evidence from Ancient Ports"
(Ferdinand Rauch, Richard Hornbeck, Guy Michaels)

Abstract: We study economic activity around urban areas that developed around Ancient Ports. We show that there are `Agglomeration Shadows' around cities, which are areas of less than average economic activity. The presence of these shadows has implications for economic geography, for example that cities are further apart from each other than a dartboard counterfactual would imply.