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The Price of Legal Institutions: The Beratlı Merchants in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2015

Cihan Artunç
Cihan Artunç*
Affiliation:
Cihan Artunç is Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

In the eighteenth century, European embassies in the Ottoman Empire started selling exemption licenses called berats, which granted non-Muslim Ottomans tax exemptions and the option to use European law. I construct a novel price panel for British and French licenses based on primary sources. The evidence reveals that prices were significantly high and varied across countries. Agents acquired multiple berats to enhance their legal options, which they exploited through strategic court switching. By the early 1800s, berat holders had driven other groups from European-Ottoman trade.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 720 - 748
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2015 

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Seven Ağır, Edhem Eldem, Amanda Gregg, Timothy Guinnane, K. Kıvanç Karaman, Timur Kuran, Naomi Lamoreaux, Sheilagh Ogilvie, Şevket Pamuk, Paul Rhode, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Jared Rubin, Francesca Trivellato, the participants at Yale University Economic History Seminar, New Perspectives in Ottoman Economic History at Yale University, the AALIMS Conference, and the Caltech Early Modern Group, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. I am grateful to the staff of the National Archives of the United Kingdom, Archives Nationales, and Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes for their kind assistance. This project was supported by grants from the Yale University MacMillan Center and the Yale Program in Economic History.

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