Gig.U is a new initiative to “accelerate the deployment of ultra high-speed networks to leading U.S. universities and their surrounding communities.” Thirty-seven universities, in partnership with their local communities, have formed the project. They hope that pushing forward locally can catalyze more general development:
We believe relatively small investments targeted to the research university communities that serve as engines of innovation can yield big returns for the American economy and our society. (from Gig.U RFI, Sept. 2011)
This city-based model has support in the economic history of another revolutionary communication development: the spread of printing presses in sixteenth-century Europe.
Recent research indicates that European cities that adopted the printing press by 1500 grew more in the subsequent century than cities that did not have printing presses by 1500. Printing began in Europe about 1450 in Mainz, Germany. By 1500, some cities in every region of Europe had printing presses. Measured by city population, the cities in which printing presses were established by 1500 grew from 20 to 78 percentage points faster on average from 1500 to 1600 than did similar cities without a printing press by 1500. This comparison includes controls for other factors associated with city growth. Significant other factors were being a historic capital city, having institutions that support commercial freedom, being a port city or being on a navigable river, initial city population, and a country fixed-effect. A relevant question is whether some unidentified factor is correlated with both the early adoption of the printing press and relatively rapid city growth in the 1500s. The research thoroughly examines alternatives, considers a variety of estimates, and convincingly points to printing presses as the causal factor for relatively rapid city growth.
Plausible mechanisms exist for the printing press to cause relatively rapid city growth. Printing contributed to the development of merchants’ business skills, such as literacy, book-keeping, and arithmetic, and to their knowledge of trading conditions. Printing stimulated upstream activities such as paper mills, illustrating, and translating, and also downstream activities such book retailing and universities and other educational services. Printing brought together in print shops intellectuals and technologists, furthering innovation and application of new ideas. The returns from printing were localized within the 1500s because transporting print was expensive and face-to-face interactions were important.
The growth advantage for early printing is weaker after 1600. Part of that effect probably results from less localization of print externalities. Another factor was the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, in Germany and considerable military conflict in Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The printing press was used as a weapon in religious conflicts that became violent conflicts. Like any technology, communications technologies can be used for good and for evil. When new communication technologies are used to make evil actions more effective, that hurts economic growth and human welfare.
Relatively low-value, ephemeral forms of print seem to have been important for growth. City printing (l’imprimerie de ville) — pamphlets, price lists, and other non-book material typically not transported between cities — seems to have been more important than book editions per capital printed in a city. Other evidence on financial market integration similarly points to the importance of financial news-sheets that even small, poorly equipped print shops could produce. The historical lesson is clear: beware of contempt for the unpolished, informal material that makes up a large share of Internet content.
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The source for the above research on the printing press and city growth is:
Dittmar, Jeremiah E. (2011). “Information Technology and Economic Change: The Impact of The Printing Press.” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 126(3): 1133-1172
For the evidence on financial market integration and news-sheets, see:
Chilosi, David and Volckart, Oliver (2010). “Books or bullion? Printing, mining and financial integration in Central Europe from the 1460s.” Economic History Working Papers, 144/10. Department of Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK (esp. pp. 22-23).