During the "Age of Mass Migration", many Chinese migrants came to the Netherlands Indies. We propose that these migratory flows included many skilled workers, contrary to the belief that they mostly consisted of unskilled labourers. We construct a new dataset of migration and potential surplus...

Cities of Commerce develops a model of institutional change in European commerce based on urban rivalry. Cities continuously competed with each other by adapting commercial, legal, and financial institutions to the evolving needs of merchants. Oscar Gelderblom traces the successive rise of...

The Dutch economy has relied on trade for centuries. During the seventeenth century the Netherlands experienced a Golden Age built largely on commercial enterprise, and trade continues to be the golden link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. Yet we know very little about the...