Early trade statistics: What are they and why do we care?

Guest speakers:

– Loïc CHARLES, University of Paris-8/INED
– Ulrich PFISTER, University of Münster
– Werner SCHELTJENS, University of Leipzig
– Cristina MOREIRA, University of Minho

– Jari OJALA, University of Jyväskylä

– Lauri KARVONEN, Åbo Akademi University
– Jeroen VAN DER VLIET, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
– Guillaume DAUDIN, University of Paris-Dauphine/OFCE

– Hubert ESCAITH, WTO

 

 

The development of economic expertise and the growing availability of economic statistics go hand in hand. That has been the case from the late 17th century, when a number of innovators in economic thought were also political arithmeticians. As such, shortcutting the understanding of the production of economic statistics can only lead to bad expertise. This workshop will examine the production of part of the earliest available macroeconomic statistics: those dealing with trade.

 

This study is especially interesting in the 18th century because continental Europe went through a growing integration phase before the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. While Great-Britain was retreating from continental markets for the benefit of overseas ones (despite he 1786 trade treaty with France), free trade was making progress on the continent, supported by a wave of free trade treaties in the 1780s. This was followed by the closing up of European national economies during and after the wars. What was the relation between the two phenomena? Considering that what is usually called the “First” globalization of the 19th century floundered after World War I, is there some kind of regularities that should be taken into account when we examine the consequences of our current globalization? What are the available data? How can we work with them? What do they teach us about the economic evolutions in this pre-statistic age?

 

Detailed programme