International shipping traffic as a determinant of the growing use of advertisements by local shopkeepers: a case study of eighteenth century Ghent

In this article we examine the quantitative growth of growing number of advertisements (ads) placed by local shopkeepers in the three-daily chronicle of Ghent between 1706 and 1800. We test whether this evolution can be explained by international (shipping) commerce, a determinant to which the literature seems to have paid less attention. In this period, the number of commercial ads placed by local shopkeepers increased strongly. The nature of the offered goods, Ordinary Least squares/Generalized method of moments (OLS/GMM) regressions and Granger-causality tests give convergent indications that this was determined by increasing international trade (on top of other factors). The intuition is that, as a result of the policy of the Austrian government to facilitate accessibility and hence reducing transportation costs, there was an inflow of new goods into the Southern Netherlands. Local shopkeepers in Ghent were supplied with more and new imported goods and increased their vending efforts by making use of commercial advertisements.