Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T07:45:11.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Globalization in the Early Modern Era: New Evidence from the Dutch-Asiatic Trade, c. 1600–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 May 2016

Pim de Zwart
Pim de Zwart*
Affiliation:
Pim de Zwart is Lecturer, Wageningen University, The Netherlands, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article contributes to the ongoing debate on the origins of globalization. It examines the process of commodity price convergence, an indicator of globalization, between Europe and Asia on the basis of newly obtained price data from the Dutch East India Company (VOC) archives. Prices for many commodities in the Dutch-Asiatic trade converged already in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a result of the growth of trade and competition among traders and companies. The extent of convergence, however, was determined, in part, by the ability of the VOC to control commodity markets.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 76 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 520 - 558
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I thank Gerrit Knaap and Judith Schooneveld-Oosterling for early access to the Bookkeeper-General database. I am grateful to Daniel Curtis, Melissa Dell, Oscar Gelderblom, Lex Heerma van Voss, Joost Jonker, Robert Margo, Anne McCants, Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, Auke Rijpma, Klas Rönnbäck, Jeffrey Williamson, Jan Luiten van Zanden, and seminar participants at Harvard University and Utrecht University, as well as the editor, Ann Carlos, and the three referees of this Journal for comments on earlier versions of this paper. Of course, any remaining errors are my responsibility.

References

REFERENCES

Allen, Robert C. “The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices From the Middle Ages to the First World War.” Explorations in Economic History 38 (2001): 411–47.Google Scholar
Bruijn, J. R. “Between Batavia and the Cape: Shipping Patterns of the Dutch East India Company.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 11, no. 2 1980: 251–64.Google Scholar
Bruijn, J. R.. “Productivity, Profitability, and Costs of Private and Corporate Dutch Ship Owning in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” In The Rise of Merchant Empires. Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750, edited by Tracy, J. D., 174–94. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Bruijn, J. R., Gaastra, F. S., and Schöffer, I., Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Vols. 1–3. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979–1987.Google Scholar
Bulbeck, David, Reid, Anthony, Tan, Lay Cheng, et al. Southeast Asian Exports since the Fourteenth Century: Cloves, Pepper, Coffee and Sugar. Leiden: KITLV Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Carlos, Ann M., and Frank D., Lewis, “Property Rights, Competition, and Depletion in the Eighteenth-Century Canadian Fur Trade: The Role of the European Market.” Canadian Journal of Economics 32, no. 3 1999: 705–28.Google Scholar
Carlos, Ann M., and Frank D., Lewis, Commerce by a Frozen Sea. Native Americans and the European Fur Trade. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Chaudhury, Sushil. From Prosperity to Decline: Eighteenth Century Bengal. New Delhi: Manohar, 1995.Google Scholar
Chilosi, David, and Federico, Giovanni. “Asian Globalizations: Market Integration, Trade and Economic Growth, 1800–1938.” LSE Economic History Working Papers No. 183, London, U.K., 2013.Google Scholar
Chilosi, David, and Federico, Giovanni. “Early Globalizations: The Integration of Asia in the World Economy.” Explorations in Economic History 57 2015: 1–18.Google Scholar
Coolhaas, W.Ph. et al., eds., Generale Missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raden aan Heren XVII der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie. 1960–2007.Google Scholar
De Jonge, J. K. J., and van Deventer, M. L., eds. De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in Oost-Indië (1595–1811): Verzameling van Onuitgegeven Stukken uit het Koloniaal Archief. Vols. 1–17. The Hague, 1862–1888.Google Scholar
De Vries, Jan. “Connecting Europe and Asia: A Quantitative Analysis of the Cape-Route Trade, 1497–1795.” In Global Connections and Monetary History, 1470–1800, edited by Flynn, D. O., Giraldez, A., and R. von Glahn, 34–106. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.Google Scholar
De Vries, Jan. The Industrious Revolution. Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vries, Jan. “The Limits of Globalization in the Early Modern World.” Economic History Review 63, no. 3 2010: 710–33.Google Scholar
Dobado-Gonzalez, Rafael, Garcia-Hiernaux, Alfredo, and David E., Guerrero. “The Integration of Grain Markets in the Eighteenth Century: Early Rise of Globalization in the West.” Journal of Economic History 72, no. 3 2012: 671–707.Google Scholar
Estevadeordal, Antoni, Frantz, Brian, and Alan M., Taylor. “The Rise and Fall of World Trade, 1870–1939.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 118, no. 2 2003: 359–407.Google Scholar
Findlay, Ronald, and O'Rourke, Kevin. “Commodity Market Integration, 1500–2000.” Globalization in Historical Perspective, edited by Bordo, M. D., Taylor, Alan M., and Jeffrey G., Williamson, 13–64. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Findlay, Ronald, and O'Rourke, Kevin. Power and Plenty. Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Flynn, D.O., and Giraldez, A.. “Path Dependence, Time Lags and the Birth of Globalization: A Critique of O'Rourke and Williamson.” European Review of Economic History 8, no. 1 2004: 81–108.Google Scholar
Frank, Andre Gunder. ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaastra, Femme S., and Jaap R., Bruijn. “The Dutch East India's Company's Shipping 1602–1795 in a Comparative Perspective.” In Ships, Sailors and Spices; East India Companies and Their Shipping in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries edited by Bruijn, Jaap R. and Femme S. Gaastra, 99–120. Amsterdam: NEHA, 1993.Google Scholar
Glamann, Kristof, Dutch-Asiatic trade 1620–1740. The Hague, 1982.Google Scholar
Gupta, Bishnupriya. “Competition and Control in the Market for Textiles: Indian Weavers and the English East India Company in the Eighteenth Century.” In How India Clothed the World. The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500–1850, edited by Riello, Giorgio and Roy, Tirthankar, 281–308. Leiden: Brill, 2009.Google Scholar
Heeres, J.E., Colenbrander, H.T., and van der Chijs, J.A., eds. Dagh-register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passerende daer ter plaetse als over geheel Nederlandts-India. Vols. 1–31. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1887–1931.Google Scholar
Hersh, Jonathan, and Voth, Hans-Joachim. “weet Diversity: Colonial Goods and the Rise of European Living Standards after 1492.” SSRN, July 2009. Available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1402322.Google Scholar
Hoadley, Mason C. Towards a Feudal Mode of Production: West Java, 1680–1800. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1994.Google Scholar
Hossain, Hameeda The Company Weavers of Bengal. The East India Company and the Organization of Textile Production in Bengal 1750–1813. Delhi etc.: Oxford U. P. 1988.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Els M. Merchant in Asia. The Trade of the Dutch East India Company during the Eighteenth Century. Leiden: CNWS, 2006.Google Scholar
Jörg, C. J. A. Porcelain and the Dutch China Trade. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982.Google Scholar
Kelly, Morgan, and Gráda, Cormac Ó. “peed under Sail, 1750–1850.” SSRN, March 2014. Available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2412955.Google Scholar
McCants, Anne. “Poor Consumers as Global Consumers: The Diffusion of Tea and Coffee Drinking in the Eighteenth Century.” Economic History Review 61, no. s1 2008: 172–200.Google Scholar
Meilink-Roelofsz, M. A. P. Asian Trade and European Influence in the Indonesian Archipelago between 1500 and about 1630. The Hague, 1962.Google Scholar
Menard, Russell. “Transport Costs and Long-Range Trade, 1300–1800: Was there a European Transport Revolution in the Early Modern Era?” In The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, edited by Tracy, J. D., 228–76. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Mitchener, Kris J., and Weidenmier, Marc. “Trade and Empire.” NBER Working Paper No. 13765, Cambridge, MA, January 2008.Google Scholar
Nadri, Ghulam. Eighteenth-Century Gujarat: The Dynamics of Its Political Economy. 1750–1800 Leiden: Brill, 2008.Google Scholar
Nagtegaal, Luc. “Rijden op een Hollandse Tijger. De Noordkust van Java en de V.O.C. 1680–1743.” Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Utrecht University, 1988.Google Scholar
National Archives (NA). The Hague, The Netherlands: Archives of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) inv. no. 1.04.02; Archives of the Bookkeeper-General Batavia (BGB) inv. 1.04.02.12.Google Scholar
North, Douglass. “Ocean Freight Rates and Economic Development 1750–1913.” Journal of Economic History 18, no. 4 1958: 538–55.Google Scholar
Posthumus, N.W. Nederlandsche Prijsgeschiedenis. Vol. I Goederenprijzen op de beurs van Amsterdam. Leiden: Brill, 1943.Google Scholar
Prakash, Om. The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal 1630–1720. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Prakash, Om. “Restrictive Trading Regimes: VOC and the Asian Spice Trade in the Seventeenth Century.” In Emporia, Commodities and Entrepreneurs in Asian Maritime Trade, c. 1400–1750, edited by Ptak, R. and Rothermund, D.. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1991.Google Scholar
Prakash, Om. European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-Colonial India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Rourke, Kevin, de la Escosura, Leandro Prados, and Daudin, Guillaume. “Trade and Empire, 1700–1870.” TEP Working Paper No. 0208, Dublin, Ireland, May 2008.Google Scholar
Kevin, O'Rourke, and Williamson, Jeffrey. “When Did Globalisation Begin?” European Review of Economic History 6, no. 1 2002: 23–50.Google Scholar
Kevin, O'Rourke, and Williamson, Jeffrey. “Once More: When Did Globalisation Begin?” European Review of Economic History 8, no. 1 2004: 109–17.Google Scholar
Rönnbäck, Klas, “Integration of Global Commodity Markets in the Early Modern Era.” European Review of Economic History 13, no. 1 2009: 95–120.Google Scholar
Rönnbäck, Klas, “The Speed of Ships and Shipping Productivity in the Age of Sail.” European Review of Economic History 16, no. 4 2013: 469–89.Google Scholar
Sharp, Paul, and Weisdorf, Jacob. “Globalization Revisited: Market Integration and the Wheat Trade between North America and Britain from the Eighteenth Century.” Explorations in Economic History 50, no. 1 2013: 88–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. New York: Bantam Classic, 2003 [Original: 1776].Google Scholar
Solar, Peter M. “Opening to the East: Shipping between Europe and Asia, 1770–1830.” Journal of Economic History 73, no. 3 2013: 625–61.Google Scholar
Solar, Peter M., and Hens, Luc. “The Speed of East India Company Ships.” Mimeo, Free University Brussels, 2013.Google Scholar
Solar, Peter M., and Rönnbäck, Klas. “Copper Sheathing and the British Slave Trade.” Economic History Review 68, no. 3 2015: 806–29.Google Scholar
Souza, G.B. The Survival of Empire. Portuguese Trade and Society in China and the South China Sea 1630–1754. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Topik, Steven. “The Integration of the World Coffee Market.” In The Global Coffee Economy in Africa, Asia and Latin America, 1500–1989, edited by Clarence-Smith, W. G. and Topik, S., 21–49. Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 2003.Google Scholar
Van der Chijs, J.A., ed., Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek, 1602–1811. Vols. 1–17. Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1885.Google Scholar
Van Niel, Robert, Java's Northeast Coast 1740–1840: A Study in Colonial Encroachment and Dominance. Leiden: CNWS, 2005.Google Scholar
Van Zanden, Jan Luiten. “Prices and Wages and the Cost of Living in the Western Part of the Netherlands 1450–1800.” Website Historical Prices and Wages of the International Institute of Social History: http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/brenv.xls. Last update: December 11, 2009.Google Scholar
Zanden, Van, Luiten, Jan, and van Leeuwen, Bas. “Persistent But Not Consistent: The Growth of National Income in Holland 1347–1807.”Explorations in Economic History 49, no. 2 2012: 119–30.Google Scholar
VOC Glossarium. Explanation of terms related to the Dutch East India Company. 2000. Website of the Huygens ING: http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vocglossarium Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World System. Vols. I–III. New York: Academic Press, 1974–1989.Google Scholar
Wolters, Willem G. “Heavy and Light Money in the Netherlands Indies and the Dutch Republic: Dilemmas of Monetary Management with Unit of Account Systems.” Financial History Review 15 2008: 37–53.Google Scholar
Yong, Liu. The Dutch East India Company's Tea Trade with China 1757–1781. Leiden: Brill, 2006.Google Scholar