IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/wpaper/28986.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Books or bullion? Printing, mining and financial integration in Central Europe from the 1460s

Author

Listed:
  • Chilosi, David
  • Volckart, Oliver

Abstract

This paper examines the role of the advent of printing and the mining boom in explaining financial integration in Central Europe from the 1460s. It finds that changes in liquidity were not a major determinant of financial integration, but the mining boom fostered financial links between the mining districts and the rest of the region. Printing promoted financial integration mainly because it triggered a fall in the costs of transmitting information rather than because it facilitated human capital formation or institutional change. The financial significance of the advent of printing was comparable to that of the mining boom.

Suggested Citation

  • Chilosi, David & Volckart, Oliver, 2010. "Books or bullion? Printing, mining and financial integration in Central Europe from the 1460s," Economic History Working Papers 28986, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:wpaper:28986
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28986/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chilosi, David & Volckart, Oliver, 2009. "Money, states and empire: financial integration cycles and institutional change in Central Europe, 1400-1520," Economic History Working Papers 27884, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    2. Federico, Giovanni, 2007. "Market integration and market efficiency: The case of 19th century Italy," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-316, April.
    3. Parsley, David C. & Wei, Shang-Jin, 2001. "Explaining the border effect: the role of exchange rate variability, shipping costs, and geography," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 87-105, October.
    4. repec:bla:kyklos:v:53:y:2000:i:3:p:265-91 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Joerg Baten & Jan Zanden, 2008. "Book production and the onset of modern economic growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 13(3), pages 217-235, September.
    6. Duplessis,Robert S., 1997. "Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521394659, September.
    7. Toniolo, Gianni & Conte, Leandro & Vecchi, Giovanni, 2003. "Monetary Union, institutions and financial market integration: Italy, 1862-1905," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 443-461, October.
    8. Volckart Oliver, 2009. "Regeln, Willkür und der gute Ruf: Geldpolitik und Finanzmarkteffizienz in Deutschland, 14. bis 16. Jahrhundert," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 50(2), pages 101-130, December.
    9. John U. Nef, 1941. "Silver Production in Central Europe, 1450-1618," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(4), pages 575-575.
    10. Pamela Nightingale, 1990. "Monetary contraction and mercantile credit in later medieval England," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 43(4), pages 560-575, November.
    11. Plümper, Thomas & Troeger, Vera E., 2007. "Efficient Estimation of Time-Invariant and Rarely Changing Variables in Finite Sample Panel Analyses with Unit Fixed Effects," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(2), pages 124-139, April.
    12. Victoria N. Bateman, 2007. "The evolution of markets in early modern Europe, 1350-1800: A study of grain prices," Economics Series Working Papers 350, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    13. Munro, John H., 2000. "The 'New Institutional Economics' and the Changing Fortunes of Fairs in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: the Textile Trades, Warfare, and Transaction Costs," MPRA Paper 11029, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Feb 2001.
    14. Victoria N. Bateman, 2011. "The evolution of markets in early modern Europe, 1350–1800: a study of wheat prices," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64(2), pages 447-471, May.
    15. Volckart, Oliver, 2000. "The open constitution and its enemies: competition, rent seeking, and the rise of the modern state," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 1-17, May.
    16. de Roover, Florence Edler, 1953. "New Facets on the Financing and Marketing of Early Printed Books," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(4), pages 222-230, December.
    17. Oliver Volckart, 2000. "State Buildng by Bargaining for Monopoly Rents," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 265-291, August.
    18. Leonard Dudley, 2008. "Information Revolutions in the History of the West," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13064.
    19. Flynn, Dennis O., 1978. "A new perspective on the spanish price revolution: The monetary approach to the balance of payments," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 388-406, October.
    20. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2000. "The Contributions of the Economics of Information to Twentieth Century Economics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1441-1478.
    21. Chilosi, David & Volckart, Oliver, 2010. "Good or bad money?: debasement, society and the state in the late Middle Ages," Economic History Working Papers 27946, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    22. Jacks, David S., 2005. "Intra- and international commodity market integration in the Atlantic economy, 1800-1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 381-413, July.
    23. Duplessis,Robert S., 1997. "Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521397735, September.
    24. Volckart, Oliver, 2002. "Central Europe's way to a market economy, 1000–1800," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(3), pages 309-337, December.
    25. Lars Boerner & Oliver Volckart, 2009. "Currency unions, optimal currency areas and the integration of financial markets: Central Europe, 14-16thcenturies," Working Papers 9012, Economic History Society.
    26. Jacks, David, 2000. "Market integration in the North and Baltic Seas, 1500-1800," Economic History Working Papers 22383, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    27. Buringh, Eltjo & Van Zanden, Jan Luiten, 2009. "Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe, A Long-Term Perspective from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(2), pages 409-445, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Coşgel, Metin M. & Miceli, Thomas J. & Rubin, Jared, 2012. "The political economy of mass printing: Legitimacy and technological change in the Ottoman Empire," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 357-371.
    2. Boerner, Lars & Rubin, Jared & Severgnini, Battista, 2021. "A time to print, a time to reform," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chilosi, David & Volckart, Oliver, 2009. "Money, states and empire: financial integration cycles and institutional change in Central Europe, 1400-1520," Economic History Working Papers 27884, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    2. Börner, Lars & Severgnini, Battista, 2011. "Epidemic trade," Discussion Papers 2011/12, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    3. Boerner, Lars & Volckart, Oliver, 2011. "The utility of a common coinage: Currency unions and the integration of money markets in late Medieval Central Europe," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 53-65, January.
    4. Chilosi, David, 2014. "Risky Institutions: Political Regimes and the Cost of Public Borrowing in Early Modern Italy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 887-915, September.
    5. Chilosi, David & Murphy, Tommy E. & Studer, Roman & Tunçer, A. Coşkun, 2013. "Europe's many integrations: Geography and grain markets, 1620–1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 46-68.
    6. Chen, Yao & Palma, Nuno & Ward, Felix, 2021. "Reconstruction of the Spanish money supply, 1492–1810," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    7. Madsen, Jakob B. & Robertson, Peter E. & Ye, Longfeng, 2024. "Lives versus livelihoods in the middle ages: The impact of the plague on trade over 400 years," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    8. Brunt, Liam & Cannon, Edmund, 2013. "Integration in the English wheat market 1770-1820," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 12/2013, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    9. Federico, Giovanni, 2007. "Market integration and market efficiency: The case of 19th century Italy," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-316, April.
    10. Melitz, Jacques & Edo, Anthony, 2019. "The Primary Cause of European Inflation in 1500-1700: Precious Metals or Population? The English Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 14023, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Coşgel, Metin M. & Miceli, Thomas J. & Rubin, Jared, 2012. "The political economy of mass printing: Legitimacy and technological change in the Ottoman Empire," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 357-371.
    12. O'Brien, Patrick, 2018. "Cosmographies for the discovery, development and diffusion of useful and reliable knowledge in pre-industrial Europe and Late imperial China: a survey and speculation," Economic History Working Papers 90534, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    13. Chilosi, David & Federico, Giovanni, 2015. "Early globalizations: The integration of Asia in the world economy, 1800–1938," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-18.
    14. Ralph Hippe & Roger Fouquet, 2024. "The Human Capital Transition and the Role of Policy," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), Handbook of Cliometrics, edition 3, pages 411-457, Springer.
    15. Boerner, Lars & Rubin, Jared & Severgnini, Battista, 2021. "A time to print, a time to reform," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    16. Chaney, Eric, 2020. "Modern Library Holdings and Historic City Growth," CEPR Discussion Papers 14686, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Daniel Cassidy & Nick Hanley, 2022. "Union, border effects, and market integration in Britain," Working Papers 0228, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    18. Carlo Ciccarelli & Stefano Fenoaltea & Tommaso Proietti, 2010. "The effects of unification: markets, policy, and cyclical convergence in Italy, 1861–1913," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 4(3), pages 269-292, October.
    19. Claude Diebolt & Roger Fouquet & Ralph Hippe, 2020. "Cliometrics and the Evolution of Human Capital," Post-Print hal-02920429, HAL.
    20. Binzel, Christine & Link, Andreas & Ramachandran, Rajesh, 2021. "Language, Knowledge, and Growth: Evidence from Early Modern Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 15454, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General
    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:wpaper:28986. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager on behalf of EH Dept. (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/chlseuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.