{"title":"Breaking free? The evolution of intra-Asian trade at the dawn of globalization (1795–1839)","authors":"Alejandro Ayuso-Diaz","doi":"10.1111/ehr.13350","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article contributes to the scholarly discourse on the repercussions of trade liberalization in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that contributed to early globalization, offering a perspective that extends beyond the traditional focus on Atlantic economies. Our study centres on East and Southeast Asia, pivotal in Pacific and Indian Ocean trade. We overcome data scarcity by presenting a new, partner-disaggregated imports dataset spanning 10 ports across the region from 1795 to 1839. Employing a gravity model and incorporating interactions, we assess the degree of intra-Asian trade and its evolution following key events that liberalized East and Southeast Asian commerce in a period when measurable global integration started to become apparent. Supporting new Asian scholarship, our results highlight the remarkable intra-Asian trade before the high colonial era. We also show that, in general, colonial trade policies fostering inter-continental trade disproportionately augmented colonial imports in East and Southeast Asia, eclipsing gains in intra-Asian or Pacific trade, especially before 1830. We explore the impact of the influx of British textiles in the region as a mechanism to explain these trends. Our study illuminates complex trade dynamics in East and Southeast Asia during a transformative period of measurable global integration.</p>","PeriodicalId":47868,"journal":{"name":"Economic History Review","volume":"78 2","pages":"424-451"},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ehr.13350","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economic History Review","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ehr.13350","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
This article contributes to the scholarly discourse on the repercussions of trade liberalization in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that contributed to early globalization, offering a perspective that extends beyond the traditional focus on Atlantic economies. Our study centres on East and Southeast Asia, pivotal in Pacific and Indian Ocean trade. We overcome data scarcity by presenting a new, partner-disaggregated imports dataset spanning 10 ports across the region from 1795 to 1839. Employing a gravity model and incorporating interactions, we assess the degree of intra-Asian trade and its evolution following key events that liberalized East and Southeast Asian commerce in a period when measurable global integration started to become apparent. Supporting new Asian scholarship, our results highlight the remarkable intra-Asian trade before the high colonial era. We also show that, in general, colonial trade policies fostering inter-continental trade disproportionately augmented colonial imports in East and Southeast Asia, eclipsing gains in intra-Asian or Pacific trade, especially before 1830. We explore the impact of the influx of British textiles in the region as a mechanism to explain these trends. Our study illuminates complex trade dynamics in East and Southeast Asia during a transformative period of measurable global integration.
期刊介绍:
The Economic History Review is published quarterly and each volume contains over 800 pages. It is an invaluable source of information and is available free to members of the Economic History Society. Publishing reviews of books, periodicals and information technology, The Review will keep anyone interested in economic and social history abreast of current developments in the subject. It aims at broad coverage of themes of economic and social change, including the intellectual, political and cultural implications of these changes.