Really interesting research; thanks for presenting!
I found the correlation between ancient city sizes and the economic size of their modern counterparts fascinating. Did you do any analysis to try to determine why the cities that did not persist failed, or why large cities that have no ancient counterpart developed later? To do this, perhaps you could look at large cities that were the least correlated between ancient and modern times. Were there any ancient cities that are no longer large, and vice-versa? If so, is there something that these cities share that can tell us something about how economies/communities rise and fall?
I also wonder if the structural gravity estimation model is/will be as effective at estimating trade between countries as physical travel becomes cheaper and easier. Do you expect that there will be different parameters one will need to include to get it to work in this case? How has globalization effected these models?
Really interesting research; thanks for presenting!
I found the correlation between ancient city sizes and the economic size of their modern counterparts fascinating. Did you do any analysis to try to determine why the cities that did not persist failed, or why large cities that have no ancient counterpart developed later? To do this, perhaps you could look at large cities that were the least correlated between ancient and modern times. Were there any ancient cities that are no longer large, and vice-versa? If so, is there something that these cities share that can tell us something about how economies/communities rise and fall?
I also wonder if the structural gravity estimation model is/will be as effective at estimating trade between countries as physical travel becomes cheaper and easier. Do you expect that there will be different parameters one will need to include to get it to work in this case? How has globalization effected these models?