Rise and Fall of Empires in the Industrial Era: A Story of Shifting Comparative Advantages

The last two centuries witnessed the rise and fall of empires. We construct a model which rationalises this in terms of the changing trade gains from empires. In the model, empires are arrangements that reduce trade cost between an industrial metropole and the agricultural periphery. During early近两个世纪以来，诸多帝国历经兴衰更迭。我们构建了一个模型，以帝国贸易收益的动态变化为核心逻辑，对这一历史进程作出合理解释。在该模型中，帝国被视为一种旨在降低工业宗主国与农业外围地区之间贸易成本的制度安排。在早期