This Paper provides a summary of what is known about trends in international commodity market integration during the second half of the second millennium. The range of goods that have been traded between continents since the Voyages of Discovery has steadily increased over time, and there has...

The paper provides a comparative history of the economic impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. By focussing on the relative price evidence, it is possible to show that the conflict had major economic effects around the world. Britain's control of the seas meant that it was much less...

For two decades, the consensus explanation of the British Industrial Revolution has placed technological change and the supply side at center stage, affording little or no role for demand or overseas trade. Recently, alternative explanations have placed an emphasis on the importance of trade...

Many previous studies of the role of trade during the British Industrial Revolution have found little or no role for trade in explaining British living standards or growth rates. We construct a three-region model of the world in which Britain trades with North America and the rest of the world,...

This paper studies the degree of integration of China's domestic market and investigates the determinants of inter-provincial trade barriers under the rubric endogenoustrade policy theory. I rely on industry-level trade flows extracted from provincial input-output tables to develop a model that...

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the trade of its successor states has spiralled downward. The European Payments Union of the 1950s is frequently invoked as a model for solving this problem. In this paper I show that in fact the EPU is an inappropriate framework for organizing the former...

Advances in communication technology make it possible for workers in India to supply business services to head offices located anywhere. This has the potential to put high-wage workers in direct competition with much lower paid Indian workers. Service trade, however, like goods trade, is subject...

Using data collected by the International Institute of Agriculture, we document the disintegration of international commodity markets between 1913 and 1938. There was dramatic disintegration during World War I, gradual reintegration during the 1920s, and then a very substantial disintegration...

Theory is ambiguous as to how globalization influences the relative performances of rich and poor countries. This paper surveys some recent literature on the historical links between international commodity and factor market integration and convergence. Focusing on the late nineteenth century, a...

How much of China’s recent economic performance can be attributed to market-oriented reforms introduced in the last two decades? A long-run perspective may be important for understanding the process of economic development occurring today. This Paper compares the integration of rice markets in...