There are two contrasting views of pre-19th century trade and globalization. First there are the world history scholars like Andre Gunder Frank who attach globalization ‘big bang' significance to the dates 1492 (Christopher Columbus stumbles on America in search of spices) and 1498 (Vasco da Gama makes an end run around Africa snatching monopoly rents away from Arab and Venetian spice traders). Such scholars are on the side of Adam Smith who believed that these were the two most important events in recorded history. Second, there is the view that the world economy was still fragmented before the 19th century. This paper offers a novel way to discriminate between these competing views and we use it to show that there is no evidence that the Ages of Discovery and Commerce had the economic impact on the global economy the world historians assign to them, while there is plenty of evidence of a very big bang in the 19th century. The test involves a close look at the connections between factor prices, commodity prices and endowments world-wide.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number
2372.
Find related papers by JEL classification: F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Country and Industry Studies of Trade N70 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - General, International, or Comparative
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)