Tracks to Modernity: Railroads, Growth, and Social Movements in Denmark

TL;DR

This study investigates how railway expansion in 19th-century Denmark fostered economic growth and social change, boosting population, industrial employment, and civic institutions through detailed parish-level analysis.

Contribution

It provides new empirical evidence linking railway access to economic and social modernization in Denmark using a comprehensive parish-level panel and difference-in-differences methodology.

Findings

Railroads increased local population by about 7%.

Rail access boosted manufacturing employment by 1.8 percentage points.

Railways raised the likelihood of folk high schools by 1.7 percentage points.

Abstract

We examine how railway expansion shaped Denmark's nineteenth-century economic transformation and the diffusion of civic engagement in the form of Grundtvigian institutions. Using a new parish-level panel (1,589 parishes) and a difference-in-differences design that accounts for staggered adoption, we find that railroad connection increased local population by about 7 percent, driven in part by higher internal in-migration (roughly 10 percent), and accelerated structural change (manufacturing employment rises by about 1.8 percentage points and the non-agricultural share by about 2 percentage points). Rail access also increased the probability that a parish hosted a folk high school by about 1.7 percentage points and raised the local densities of both folk high schools and community houses. Overall, the results suggest that market access was not only a driver of economic modernization but also a catalyst for institutional and cultural transformation.