A Study in Meteorological and Trade Cycle History: The Economic Crisis Following the Napoleonic Wars

The factors regulating the production and distribution of material wealth cannot be reduced exclusively to market relationships. This being the case, the economic historian cannot limit his borrowings to economics alone. The present article uses meteorology both in its theoretical and historical dimensions to show the interaction between economic and meteorological fluctuations. The attempt of W. S. Jevons to find a theoretical connection between solar cycles and trade cycles is well known. Economic historians of preindustrial Europe have identified weather patterns as a primary independent variable determining prosperity or depression. The impact of meteorological fluctuation on economic activity has also been noticed for the nineteenth century, acknowledged by theorist and historian alike as one of the major variables inducing trade cycles. But in these accounts weather patterns are introduced as a run of good or bad luck, affecting essentially regional or national economies.