IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tor/tecipa/munro-99-01.html

The Low Countries' Export Trade in Textiles with the Mediterranean Basin, 1200-1600: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Comparative Advantages in Overland and Maritime Trade Routes

Author

Listed:
  • John H. Munro

Abstract

This paper challenges the conventional wisdom in European economic history that long-distance maritime transport was always more cost-effective than overland trade routes. Thus the majority of historians in the past century have attributed the rapid decline of the medieval Champagne Fairs, governing the textile trades between the Low Countries, northern France, and Italy, to the establishment of an effective and permanent' direct sea-route between Italy and north-west Europe from the early 14th century (though the first, a Genoese galley, can be dated to 1277). The paper concludes by examining the various factors and forces that led to a fall in transport and transaction costs in the international textile trades, via the overland routes, including river routes, between north-west Europe and the Mediterranean basin from the later 15th to early 17th centuries.

Suggested Citation

  • John H. Munro, 1999. "The Low Countries' Export Trade in Textiles with the Mediterranean Basin, 1200-1600: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Comparative Advantages in Overland and Maritime Trade Routes," Working Papers munro-99-01, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:munro-99-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/UT-ECIPA-MUNRO-99-01.pdf
    File Function: MainText
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bart Ballaux & Bruno Blondé, 2018. "Road transport productivity in the sixteenth‐century Low Countries: the case of Brabant, 1450–1650," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 71(3), pages 707-726, August.
    2. Edwards, Jeremy & Ogilvie, Sheilagh, 2012. "What lessons for economic development can we draw from the Champagne fairs?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 131-148.
    3. Munro, John H., 2006. "South German silver, European textiles, and Venetian trade with the Levant and Ottoman Empire, c. 1370 to c. 1720: a non-Mercantilist approach to the balance of payments problem, in Relazione economiche tra Europa e mondo islamico, seccoli XIII - XVI," MPRA Paper 11013, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jul 2006.
    4. 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.
    5. Ogilvie, Sheilagh & Carus, A.W., 2014. "Institutions and Economic Growth in Historical Perspective," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 8, pages 403-513, Elsevier.
    6. Munro, John H., 2007. "Hanseatic commerce in textiles from the Low Countries and England during the Later Middle Ages: changing trends in textiles, markets, prices, and values, 1290 - 1570," MPRA Paper 11199, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2008.
    7. Munro, John H., 2002. "The medieval origins of the 'Financial Revolution': usury, rentes, and negotiablity," MPRA Paper 10925, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2002.
    8. John H. Munro, 2008. "Necessities and Luxuries in Early-Modern Textile Consumption: Real Values of Worsted Says and Fine Woollens in the Sixteenth-Century Low Countries," Working Papers tecipa-323, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    9. John Munro, 2005. "Spanish merino wools and the nouvelles draperies: an industrial transformation in the late medieval Low Countries," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 58(3), pages 431-484, August.
    10. Munro, John H., 2005. "I panni di lana: Nascita, espansione e declino dell’industria tessile di lana italiana, 1100-1730 [The woollen cloth industry in Italy: The rise, expansion, and decline of the Italian cloth industries, 1100 - 1730]," MPRA Paper 11038, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2006.
    11. Munro, John H., 2002. "Industrial energy from water-mills in the European economy, 5th to 18th Centuries: the limitations of power," MPRA Paper 11027, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2002.
    12. Guha, Brishti, 2012. "Who will monitor the monitors? Informal law enforcement and collusion at Champagne," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 261-277.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • F2 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • N6 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction
    • N7 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services

    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:tor:tecipa:munro-99-01. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: RePEc Maintainer (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.