Clocks, ships, cities and longitude

Martina Miotto, Luigi Pascali, Solving the longitude puzzle: A story of clocks, ships and cities, Journal of International Economics, 2025, 104067, ISSN 0022-1996, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2025.104067.

Abstract: The chronometer, one of the greatest inventions of the modern era, allowed for the first time for the precise measurement of longitude at sea. We examine the impact of this innovation on navigation and urbanization. Our identification strategy leverages the fact that the navigational benefits provided by the chronometer varied across different sea regions depending on the prevailing local weather conditions. Utilizing high-resolution data on climate, ship routes, and urbanization, we argue that the chronometer significantly altered transoceanic sailing routes. This, in turn, had profound effects on the expansion of the British Empire and the global distribution of cities and populations outside Europe.

Note that the chronometer would have been useless in this application without the ability to perform calculations over the times taken-down. Those calculations would have been all but impossible without tables of logarithms. Those tables, in turn, could not have been created with arithmetic based on the Arabic numerals, something which David Hays and I pointed out in "The Evolution of Cognition."

H/t Tyler Cowen.