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

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.