The First World War tested the fiscal systems of all belligerent countries, usually in unprecedented ways. Governments had to tax more than they ever had before, they had to borrow more than they ever had before, and had to restrict their economies, including with respect to trade and foreign exchange, in ways they never…
London was a financial center and a port city and each of these roles supported the other. It was convenient for a port city to offer insurance and other financial services and a financial sector found considerable demand for its services from merchants and ship owners. Across the North Sea was another considerable port…
For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, trade was liberalized so that goods could be imported without tariffs being imposed in progressively more and more cases. However, there have been waves of protectionism, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 introduced by the United States being one of the most notable of the 20th century. Even…
Germany unified politically into a single country in the 1870s but its economic integration began a few decades earlier. Trade within Germany had been hindered by the many tariff barriers that existed between a myriad of different principalities each possessing the right to tax goods at its borders. This made trade between Berlin and Stuttgart…
The 19th century saw the advent of global free trade. One of the first trade deals between two countries, the Cobden–Chevalier Treaty between Britain and France, was entered into in 1860. Yet, trade barriers remained high between many countries and even internal trade barriers existed in industrializing countries like France. Throughout the 19th century, French…
Market demand for tea in Europe may have appeared overnight but import volumes did not grow to large proportions nearly so instantaneously. Imports of tea from China grew over the course of the 18th century and even spaced out over many decades, the steadily rising demand strained the capacity of Chinese merchants to supply the…
Merchants are regularly presented with dangers that are distinct from ordinary and obvious market dangers such as the movement of prices up and down. Besides these, they also face all sorts of risks arising from the people they must trust in order to conduct business, namely counterparty risks. Today, and for centuries, industries rely…
Ships are large expensive assets that are financed over long periods of time. Therefore, in the case of warships, they are physical expressions of a state’s fiscal power. Meanwhile, cargo ships, including tanker ships, require private financing which has been leveraged to greater degree just in the past sixty years or so. However, shipping…
If required to settle every payment immediately, trade can become a very capital-intensive business despite its small margins. This would have been especially taxing back when far longer travel times would have meant inventories had to be held for longer. When metal coins made up most of the money supply, immediate settlement of purchases…
Population growth and rising living standards increased demand for meats in Britain during the Industrial Revolution; however, diseases that reduced cattle herds meant more imports were needed to satisfy demand. Some of this demand was met by imports of fresh beef from America. This was extraordinary considering that up to this moment in history,…
