This article offers a Japanese perspective on the debate about the international financial system immediately after the first oil shock of 1973–4. Using archival records from the OECD and Bank of Japan, I analyze the three key policy issues discussed at the meetings of Working Party 3 (WP3) of the OECD: petrodollar recycling, balance-of-payments adjustments, and the management of global growth. Documents show that the Japanese approach to capital controls, exchange rate management, state-led growth orientation and international banking strategies was rather strengthened by the impact of the oil shock. By 1975 the OECD viewed Japan, together with Germany and the United States, as one of the ‘locomotives’ that would trigger a revival of economic growth in the industrialized West.

Offshore financial centres have attracted considerable critical attention over the past few decades as havens for lightly taxed funds that circulate outside the regulatory oversight of major financial centres. This article addresses the emergence of an offshore market in US dollars in Singapore from the late 1960s using a range of archival sources to identify the motivations of the host, participant banks and regional rivals. The development of the Asia dollar market is particularly striking because Singapore was not the most likely venue for an Asian offshore financial centre. The main regional financial centre was Hong Kong, but the Hong Kong authorities made a deliberate choice not to host an offshore market in Hong Kong, a decision that was initially supported both by the state and by incumbent banks, although the banks later changed their view as the Singapore market grew. This case thus opens up discussion of the influence market actors exert over regulators when they are engaged in regulatory arbitrage as well as regulatory competition between states. Evidence is also presented about the efforts of the Bank for International Settlements to encourage greater transparency in offshore financial centres in the 1980s.

This article explores the impact of Asian goods in the Rio de la Plata area through the navigation course of two frigates of the Royal Company of Phillipines, forced by the maritime conflict between the Spanish and British Empires, dock in the Southern estuary. Examining the value and traits of the shipment and the details of the ‘comercio de pacotilla’, this study analyzes the distribution of the goods from China, Philippines and in particular, India, in the port basin, the hinterland of the Viceroyalty, and its connections to the Alto Peruvian space, the trans-Andean region, and the Littoral way to Paraguay. This episode enables an understanding of the distribution of goods, as well as a more detailed recognition of the actors of this traffic and a renewed evaluation of the role of the company in the global market of Asian goods.

The present paper intends to contribute with new information to a reconstruction of the Sephardic presence in the Macao–Manila commercial network. For this purpose, in the first place, we intend to trace the profile of the Judaeo-converso merchants arriving in China and the Philippines and to reconstruct the commercial networks to which they belonged during the 16th and early 17th centuries.

The important role of Chinese demand for silver in stimulating worldwide silver-mining and shaping the first truly global trading system has become commonly recognised in the world history scholarship. The commercial dynamism of China during the 16th-19th centuries was integrally related to the importation of foreign silver, initially from Japan but principally from Latin America. Yet the significance of imports of Latin American silver for the Chinese economy changed substantially over these three centuries in tandem with the rhythms of China's domestic economy as well as the global trading system. This article traces these changes, including the adoption of a new standard money of account—the yuan—derived from the Spanish silver peso coin.

This article studies how the emergence of new political elites and changes in land tenure relationships shaped the socio-economic profile of local credit markets in the Ottoman Balkans between the late seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries. By using probate inventories and court records for the cities of Salonika (including Karaferye), Vidin and Ruse, I compare how the expansion of tax-farming institutions and the concentration of land ownership influenced the social characteristics of lending activities. I find that, in spite of institutional and political similarities, the evolution of local credit markets did not follow a homogeneous pattern. Contrary to the consensus view in the existing literature, local political and military elites, which most tax farmers and large landowners belonged to, did not play a dominant role as moneylenders. Civilians (such as merchants and artisans) together with other social groups, including janissaries and religious functionaries, provided the bulk of informal credit to local communities (including elites) in the three urban areas.

Interpretations of the role of the state in economic change in colonial (1858-1947) and post-colonial India (1947-) tend to presume that the colonial was an exploitative and the post-colonial a developmental state. This article shows that the opposition does not work well as a framework for economic history. The differences between the two states lay elsewhere than in the drive to exploit Indian resources by a foreign power. The difference was that British colonial policy was framed with reference to global market integration, whereas post-colonial policy was framed with reference to nationalism. The article applies this lesson to reread the economic effects of the two types of state, and reflects on ongoing debates in the global history of European expansion.

This article surveys the monetary history of Koryŏ from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. During the first century of the dynasty, Koryŏ was at war with the Liao, prohibited trade with the enemy and pursued a policy of protecting its metal reserves. During the ban on metallic coins, rice and cloth served as commodity monies, ensuring price stability in a phase of sustained growth of the rural economy. A second phase began after the victory over the Liao in 1018. Backed by military strength, the government issued iron, bronze and silver currencies to facilitate international trade. The Koryŏ ‘silver vase’ currency, which circulated for three centuries, partly bridges the ‘black hole’ in East Asian monetary history from the Late Tang to the Ming period. The intrinsic value of the metallic currencies in conjunction with state issuance provided monetary stability. In turn monetary instability characterised the late Koryŏ, when the country came under the influence of the Mongol Yuan. The destabilising effect brought about by the introduction of Yuan paper money demonetarised the economy. By framing monetary history within a wider perspective of struggles for sovereignty and political hegemony, the article allows a better understanding of domestic and regional dynamics in East Asia.

This article reviews the political economy of Manchuria under the rule of Zhang Zuolin, which resulted in the economic instability that occurred during the winter of 1928. One can conjecture that the economic instability did not occur only because of the arbitrariness of the political and military regional government. The instability appears to be related to an ongoing seasonal demand for monies, which was relatively high between the months of September and March, since it corresponded to the period of commerce in soybeans − the region's main economic activity −, the migration of seasonal workers, and also the festive period of the Chinese New Year. The analysis was conducted based on primary materials published by the South Manchuria Railway Company, such as currency issuance and the variation of the exchange rate of the major currencies in circulation among foreign and Chinese currencies.

Was nineteenth-century Japan an example of finance-led growth? Using a new panel data set of firms from the Meiji period (1868–1912), this article tests whether financial sector development influenced extensive firm activity across industries and locations. Results from a two-stage least squares first difference model suggest that financial intermediation is associated with additional net firm establishment, particularly in light manufacturing sectors like textiles. The overall effect is muted in the latter part of the period and among peripheral regions, which may underscore the respective roles of institutions and agglomeration economies in later stages of development.

The life and work of Miguel de Cervantes coincide with the first cycle of globalization. One of the main engines of the world economy was the silver trade between the Americas and the Asian markets. The new world economy was developing at the same time as the «military revolution» in Eurasia. The Spanish, Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal and Russian empires and other political entities used the new military «hardware» and «software» to expand their borders and to maintain their position employing the larger part of their financial resources. These new economic and political realities propelled ecological exchanges that would irrevocably change the history of the world. That was the time of Don Quixote.