Welcome! This repository holds the code for my project studying the impact of the ancient Roman border on modern economic development in Hungary. This was a term project for an MA econometrics course. I use a spatial regression discontinuity design to estimate the impact of the Roman frontier, using luminosity data from the NOAA as a proxy for economic development.
The Roman border through modern Hungary (the Limes Pannonicus) followed the Danube river, and was the site of a major military road. Most cities in Western Hungary were also founded by the Romans. I argue that despite the upheaval and population movements of late antiquity and the Magyar invasion, the infrastructure left in transdanubia gave the people on the western bank a head start, so to speak.
Details on the historical background to this project can be found in the "Hungary_Paper.pdf"
The files are as follows:
Hungary_paper.pdf - the actual paper, background, analysis, regression tables
Roman_Border_RDD.pdf - a pdf of the R markdown file with code and plots, many not displayed in the paper
Roman_Border_RDD.Rmd - the raw R markdown file
Metrics-Project.r - the even more raw code with my original comments
Proximity of Road to ancient roads.png - a QGIS showing the continuity between ancient and modern roadways