Thor Berger
Thor Berger
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I am an Associate Professor (Docent) in Economic History at Lund University, Pro Futura Scientia Fellow XVI at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (Uppsala University), a Research Fellow at the CEPR, and an Affiliated Researcher at IFN. Currently, I also serve on the editorial board of the Journal of Economic History and the European Review of Economic History.
I am an economic historian interested in questions at the intersection of economic history, economic geography, and urban economics. My research employs historical big data and econometric methods to examine the forces shaping growth, innovation, and opportunity across cities and regions. A central theme of my work is understanding how policy interventions can alter spatial development trajectories and how technology shocks affect the fortunes of firms, individuals, and places in both the short and long run.
My research has been published in academic journals spanning economics, economic geography, economic history, general science, and sociology and has been widely featured in media outlets such as the BBC, CNN, the Economist, Financial Times, the Guardian, the New York Times, Scientific American, and Wall Street Journal, as well as being cited by organizations such as the World Bank and the WTO. I have also contributed expert advice on growth, technology, and regional development to the European Commission, the OECD, the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation, and the United Nations. See CV for a full list of my professional activities and writing.
Working papers
Cities and the rise of working women
with Mounir Karadja and Erik Prawitz
[current draft] [CEPR dp] [status: submitted]
Guilds and growth: evidence from the Free City
[current draft] [CEPR dp] [status: submitted]
In progress
Modernization and mental health
Engines of liberation? Technology and the decline of child labor
Deskilling: firm evidence from Europe and the United States
Market integration and structural transformation (with Ingvild Almås, Timo Boppart, Konrad Burchardi, and Hannes Malmberg) [see the HMCS data website]
Let there be light: illumination and the geography of development (with Erik Prawitz)
A rural revolution? Regional development and the rise of the savings bank movement
Wheels of change: agricultural automation and human capital in American history (with Nico Meffe)
Power and peril: the human costs of technological change
Industrialization and the rise of the welfare state (with Konrad Burchardi and Erik Prawitz)
City of my dreams: health, mobility, and innovation in Stockholm (with Mounir Karadja, Erik Prawitz, and Martin Önnerfors)
Publications (see CV for full list)
Institutional innovation and the adoption of new technologies: the case of steam
with Vinzent Ostermeyer
Journal of Economic History, 2025
[pdf] [journal] [VoxEU column]
Historical manufacturing census of Sweden: Data description and quality assessment
with Ingvild Almås, Timo Boppart, Konrad Burchardi, Olof Ejermo, Björn Eriksson, Anders Larsson, Hannes Malmberg, Stefan Maukner, Mats Olsson, and Vinzent Ostermeyer
Historical Methods, 2025
[pdf] [journal] [HMCS data website]
Firm survival and the rise of the factory
Inventors among the “Impoverished Sophisticate”
Collaboration and connectivity: Historical evidence from patent records
with Erik Prawitz
Journal of Urban Economics, 2024
[pdf] [journal] [VoxTalks podcast]
Social mobility in Sweden before the welfare state
Making a market: Infrastructure, integration, and the rise of innovation
Industrial automation and intergenerational income mobility in the United States
Trends and disparities in subjective upward mobility since 1940
American geography of opportunity reveals European origins
with Per Engzell
PNAS, 2019
[pdf] [journal] [VoxEU column] [PNAS podcast]
Railroads and rural industrialization: Evidence from a historical policy experiment
Adopting a new technology: potatoes and population growth in the periphery
Elites and the expansion of education in nineteenth‐century Sweden
Places of persistence: Slavery and the geography of intergenerational mobility in the United States
Drivers of disruption? Estimating the Uber effect
Locomotives of local growth: The short-and long-term impact of railroads in Sweden
Political machinery: did robots swing the 2016 US presidential election?
Industrial renewal in the 21st century: evidence from US cities
Regional technological dynamism and noncompete clauses: Evidence from a natural experiment
Did the Computer Revolution shift the fortunes of US cities? Technology shocks and the geography of new jobs.
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