Contenu du sommaire : Eighteenth-century international trade statistics

Trade statistics are perhaps among the oldest official statistics alongside population censuses. Until very recently, trade statistics remained closely tied to their original eighteenth-century purpose of informing the Prince about taxes collected by customs officials; more recently in the mid-twentieth century, they came to serve also in establishing the National Accounts required by the State for managing the economy. Then the world economy became truly global. Trade statistics had to become trans-national and multi-dimensional if they were to be representative of the twenty-first century economic system. The methodology has matured in the 2010s; in the process, trade statistics have gone beyond their initial purpose of serving the State to become a tool for understanding the complex relationships linking various industries across different borders. The resulting information is increasingly used to assess not only the economic dimensions of trade but also its implications in terms of employment and the environment.

From 2008 to 2011, we created Navigocorpus, an online data-base on shipping. While conceiving the data-base structure, we aimed at preserving data as close as possible to the way they appear in the sources – spelling and languages included – but also at developing a series of tools to handle the mass of data stored in the database. This paper deals with the way we processed cargoes and explains the three possibilities we offer to users. First, they can query a field containing a standardized English translation of cargo items. Secondly, they can create their own categories of classification in a on-the-way coding field, according to the specific needs of their research. Finally, they can query a permanent coding which provides, though a codified string of characters, information on the raw material, elaboration process and use of the product. A few concrete examples illustrate these features.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the fact that the lack of useable German trade statistics for the period preceding the German political unification is not a fatality. The documents published during the Zollverein period by the Central Bureau of the Zollverein, the Statistische Uebersichten über Waaren-Verkehr und Zoll-Ertrag im Deutschen Zoll-Vereine für das Jahr..., do not provide prices nor trade flows in value nor any indication of countries of ultimate origin and destination. To overcome these imperfections, a great number of estimates of Zollverein trade statistics have been published since 1842 but they are questionable as well. Nevertheless, the good quality of Statistische Übersichten's quantity data should make possible the reconstruction of consistent series of German trade, total, by product and in value, over the period 1834-1871.

The eighteenth century was a period of many great power wars and competition for colonies. However, despite the turmoil, smaller nations were able to carve their niches in the international trade of the period. Examination of new sources, used in a comparative fashion, indicates that bilateral trade still has much to offer for the analysis of international trade history. The pattern of bilateral trade between Sweden and Portugal indicates that they were not equally dependent on that trade, and that the products traded varied over time. Usually bulk commodities dominated this trade, as each country focused on its core competencies. Overall, the volume of trade and the number of ships traveling to each nation tended to grow over time, although this growth was not very even. The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic conflicts were a time of difficulties for both states, given their involvement in wars. While the overall effects of warfare are typically quite negative, these years offered opportunities for smaller states too, until they had to adjust to the intense competition of nineteenth century globalization.

Even after the economic boom of the 17th century had faded away, during the 18th century Amsterdam remained an important entrepot for a wide variety of goods, especially to and from the Baltic, considered by contemporaries as the ‘mother of all trades'. What role did local merchants have in the continuation of maritime trade? What were the challenges they faced? Combining different data sources might provide a better understanding of their activities. In this paper several data sources are discussed, with a focus on the Baltic trade and the use of data from both muster rolls and the Sound Toll Registers.

In this paper, a quantitative analysis of direct French imports to the Baltic is presented, based on a converted version of the Sound toll registers online for the period 1670-1850. It is examined how the available transport space, that was employed in direct trade between France and the Baltic, was used. The dominant products taken on board are analysed; the geography of French imports to the Baltic is discussed. Structural changes in the volumes imported to the Baltic of the main product categories are interpreted as the result of the reconfiguration of the role of Russian and Prussian ports in the Baltic, the decline of Dutch commercial dominance and the emergence of modern structures of commercial exchange.

The study assembles indirect evidence to establish the patterns of international trade in eighteenth-century Germany. Major results include: (1) International trade of Germany expanded at an annual rate of 1 per cent or slightly less in real terms between the 1730s and the early 1790s. Since GDP grew by about 0.5 per cent p. a. this implies an increase in openness. (2) Imports of colonial goods, most notably sugar and coffee, expanded at slightly less than 2 per cent p. a., which suggests that Germany participated in the development of the Atlantic economy. (3) The period saw import substitution of cottons, and towards the end of the eighteenth century exports of cotton goods partially compensated for sluggish growth of trade in linen, the chief export product. Trade growth seems to have resulted from an increased utilization of seasonally underemployed labour for the production of manufactures for export and contributed to the stabilization of per capita incomes in face of declining marginal labour productivity in agriculture.