Cfp: International trade and the economy, 1600-1870

Call for papers : «International trade and the economy, 1600-1870»

Paris (Université Paris-Dauphine), October 19th-20th 2017
ANR TOFLIT18, https://toflit18.hypotheses.org

External trade flows are the single macroeconomic data that early modern states have collected with the most care. The first attempts at measuring foreign trade can be dated from the early seventeenth century. Later on, several Italian states, such as the Republics of Genoa and Venice, began to systematically collect customs data to create balances of trade. England and Ireland followed and, from 1696 on, they collected a continuous series of data flows and released a yearly evaluation of the English balance of trade. Several of the continental states, such as France, followed suit, and by the end of the eighteenth-century most of them produced more or less comprehensive balances of trade. A number of recent scientific events and publications have discussed the availability of these trade data (two conferences in Lille in 2011 and in Paris in 2014)[1]. Last year, we organized a conference in Paris that explored the issue of classifying trade data in order to make them useful for economic analysis (Paris 2016). Our aim in this new conference is to take stock of these methodological and data-related efforts to provide a fresh view of the contribution of international trade to the growth and development of national economies before and at the time of the first Industrial Revolution.

Below are some suggestions for possible contributions:

• The ongoing debate among economists and historians shows there is no agreement on the direct causes as to why Britain was the first industrial nation and why other countries lagged behind. However, it must be noted that in recent years economic historians coming from different methodological backgrounds put renewed emphasis on the importance of international trade for the Industrial Revolution (Robert Allen, Maxine Berg, Kenneth Pomeranz among others). Put in a larger perspective, the impact of late twentieth-century globalization on development has forced us to rethink the relationship of international trade and industrialization.
• A complementary perspective is the analysis of international trade data for understanding the workings and transformations of early modern European economies. Goods that were traded and circulated at the international level occupied a special place. External trade provided European consumers with new goods (sugar, coffee, tea, Asian manufactures, etc.) and producers with new inputs (indigo, cotton, etc.). At the same time, it allowed regional specialization both in agricultural and industrial production by connecting these overseas markets to European regions that furnished non-local supplies such as meat, textiles, grains or wine. Actually, as a whole, data on external trade give fundamental insights into the material culture of Early Modern Europe and its transformations in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
• We will also welcome quantitative studies of policy changes and their effects such as, in the French case, the liberalization of the grain trade in 1774 under Turgot, the Eden trade treaty of 1786 and other trade agreements of the 1780s, the first unified tariff of 1791 that did away will most prohibitions and reduced industrial tariffs to 5-15%, the movement toward autarky after 1793, including the Continental System and the short free-trade period of 1814-1816. Comparable changes took place in most European economies.

This conference is financed by the TOFLIT18 project (http://toflit18.hypotheses.org/) funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR). It will take place on the 19th and the 20th of October in Paris in Dauphine. Limited funds are available for travel and accommodation of presenters and discussants; priority will be given to early-career researchers and researchers coming from emerging countries.

If you to participate, send 500-word abstracts including affiliation details before June 1st 2017 to either guillaume.daudin@dauphine.fr or Charles@ined.fr
If you want to apply for funding, please provide as well a preliminary budget and a one page CV.

Scientific Committee
Loïc Charles, Paul Cheney, Anne Conchon, Guillaume Daudin, Paul Girard, Ragnhild Hutchison, Aidan Kane, Lionel Kesztenbaum, Silvia Marzagalli, Kevin O’Rourke, Werner Scheltjens, Jan Willem Veluwenkamp

Organizing Committee
Loïc Charles and Guillaume Daudin
[1] Loïc Charles et Guillaume Daudin, éd., « Eighteenth Century International Trade Statistics: Sources and Methods », Revue de l’OFCE (Special Issue), no 140 (2015): 7‑377.