Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T10:42:01.623Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Storage and English Government Intervention in Early Modern Grain Markets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Randall Nielsen
Randall Nielsen
Affiliation:
A doctoral candidate at Washington University, Department of Economics, Campus Box 1208, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 1587 the English Privy Council issued its first Book of Orders for the relief of dearth, a program of grain-market control that included forced delivery of private stocks to local markets in crisis periods. The policy has been described as an effective response to irrational hoarding and credited for a significant reduction in English grain-price variance. In contrast, I find support for an alternative profit maximizing model of storage. The occurrence of similar price stabilization in other European markets in the early seventeenth century is also demonstrated, suggesting English policy was not the cause.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 1 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Appleby, Andrew B. “Grain Prices and Subsistence Crises in England and France, 1590–1740.” this JOURNAL 39 (12 1979): 865–87.Google Scholar
Baulant, Micheline, and Jean, Meuvret. Prix des cereales extraits de la mercuriale de Paris 1520–1698. 2 vols. Paris: S. E. V. P. E. N., 1962.Google Scholar
Bell, Barbara. “Analysis of Viticultural Data by Cumulative Deviations.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 10 (Spring 1980): 851–58.Google Scholar
Berenson, Mark, and Levine, David M.. Basic Statistics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1983.Google Scholar
Beveridge, W. H. “Weather and Harvest Cycles.” The Economic Journal 31 (12 1921): 429–52.Google Scholar
Bowden, Peter. “Statistical Appendix.” In The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1500–1640, Vol.4, edited by Joan, Thirsk, 814–70. London: Cambridge University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Creedy, John. “On the King—Davenant ‘Law’ of Demand.” Scottish Journal of Political Economy 33 (08 1986): 193–212.Google Scholar
Croxton, F. E., Cowden, D. J., and Klein, S.. Applied General Statistics. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1967.Google Scholar
Davenant, Charles. An Essay Upon the Probable Methods of Making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade. London: J. Knapton, 1999.Google Scholar
Elsas, M. J. “Price Data from Munich, 1500–1700.” Economic Journal Supplement 3 (02 1935): 63–78.Google Scholar
Engle, Robert F. “Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity with Estimates of the Variance of United Kingdom Inflation.” Econometrica 50 (07 1982): 987–1006.Google Scholar
Everitt, Alan. “The Marketing of Agricultural Produce.” In The Agrarian History of England and Wales, 1500–1640, Vol.4, edited by Joan, Thirsk, 466–592. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.Google Scholar
Farmer, D. L. “Grain Yields on the Winchester Manors in the Later Middle Ages.” The Economic History Review 2d ser., 30 (11 1977): 555–66.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W. “The Conquest of High Mortality and Hunger in Europe and America: Timing and Mechanisms.” In Favorites of Fortune: Technology Growth and Economic Development Since the Industrial Revolution, edited by Higonnet, P., Landes, D., and Rosovsky, H., 33–71. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W. “Second Thoughts on the European Escape From Hunger: Famines, Chronic Malnutrition, and Mortality Rates.” In Nutrition and Poverty, edited by Osmani, S. R., 243–86. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Foster, Robert. The Nobility of Toulouse in the Eighteenth Century: A Social and Economic Study. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1960.Google Scholar
Freche, Georges, and Genevieve, Freche. Les Prix des grains des vins et des legumes a Toulouse, 1486–1868 Paris: Presses universitaire de France, 1967.Google Scholar
Fussell, G. E. ed. Robert Loder’s Farm Accounts 1610–1620. Camden Soc. 3d ser., vol. 53. London: Office of the Society, 1936.Google Scholar
Gardner, Bruce. “Public Stocks of Grain and the Market for Grain Storage.” In New Directions in Econometric Modeling and Forecasting in U.S. Agriculture, edited by Gordon, C. Rausser, 443–69. New York: North-Holland, 1982.Google Scholar
Gras, Norman Scott Brien. The Evolution of the English Corn Market From the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1915.Google Scholar
Gould, J. D. “The Trade Depression of the Early 1620s” The Economic History Review, 2d ser. 7, no. 1 (08 1954): 81–90.Google Scholar
Gould, J. D. “Agricultural Fluctuations and the English Economy in the Eighteenth Century.” this JOURNAL 22 (09 1962): 313–33.Google Scholar
Gutmann, MyronWar and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Earl J.American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain 1501–1650. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934.Google Scholar
Healy, M. J. R., and Jones, E. L.. “Wheat Yields in England, 1815–59.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, series A 125, no. 4 (1962): 574–79.Google Scholar
Hoskins, W. G. “Harvest Fluctuations and English Economic History, 1480–1619.” Agricultural History Review 12, no. 1 (1964): 28–46.Google Scholar
Hoskins, W. G. “Harvest Fluctuations and English Economic History, 1620–1759.” Agricultural History Review 16, no. 1 (1968): 15–31.Google Scholar
Jordan, W. K.Philanthropy in England 1480–1660. London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1959.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Steven L.Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis XV. 2 vols. The Hauge: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Steven L.Provisioning Paris: Merchants and Millers in the Grain and Flour Trade during the Eighteenth Century. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Komlos, John, and Richard, Landes. “Anachronistic Economics: Grain Storage in Medieval England.” Economic History Review 2d ser. 44 (02 1991): 36–45.Google Scholar
Landes, David S. “The Statistical Study of French Crises.” this JOURNAL 10 (11 1950): 195–211.Google Scholar
Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy. Times of Feast, Times of Famine. Garden City, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1971.Google Scholar
Ladurie, Emmanuel Le Roy, and Micheline, Baulant. “Grape Harvests from the Fifteenth Through the Nineteenth Centuries.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 10 (Spring 1980): 839–49.Google Scholar
Leonard, E. M.The Early History of English Poor Relief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900.Google Scholar
Lipson, E.The Economic History of England. Vol. 3. London: Adam and Charles Black, 1961.Google Scholar
McCloskey, Donald N., and John, Nash. “Corn at Interest: The Extent and Cost of Grain Storage in Medieval England.” American Economic Review 74 (03 1984): 174–87.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. R.British Historical Statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Mitchell, B. R. and Phyllis Deane. Abstract of British Historical Statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Newbery, David M. G., and Stiglitz, Joseph E.. The Theory of Commodity Price Stabilization: A Study in the Economics of Risk. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Outhwaite, R. B. “Dearth and Government Intervention in English Grain Markets, 1590–1700.” Economic History Review 2d ser. 34 (08 1981): 389–406.Google Scholar
Pfister, Christian. “An Analysis of the Little Ice Age: Climate in Switzerland and its Consequences for Agricultural Production.” In Climate and History: Studies in Past Climates and Their Impact on Man, edited by Wigley, T. M. L., Ingram, M. J., and Farmer, G., 214–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Posthumus, N. W.Inquiry Into the Histoty of Prices in Holland. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964.Google Scholar
Quintrell, B. W. “The Making of Charles I’s Book of Orders.” English Historical Review 95 no. 376 (1980): 553–72.Google Scholar
Rashid, Salim. “The Policy of Laissez Faire During Scarcities.” The Economic Journal 90 (09 1980): 493–503.Google Scholar
Ravallion, Martin. “The Performance of Rice Markets in Bangladesh During the 1974 Famine.” The Economic Journal 95 (03 1985): 15–29.Google Scholar
Rogers, James E. T.A History of Agriculture and Prices in England. Vols. 4 and 5. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.Google Scholar
Root, Hilton L.The Fountain of Privilege: Political Foundations of Markets in Old Regime France and England. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Sillem, J. A.Tabellen van Marktprijzen van Granen te Utrecht in de Jaren 1393 tot 1644. Amsterdam: J. Muller, 1901.Google Scholar
Slack, Paul. “Books of Orders: The Making of English Social Policy, 1577–1631.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 5th ser. 30 (02 1980): 1–22.Google Scholar
Slicher van Bath, B. H. “Agriculture in the Vital Revolution.” In The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. 5, edited by Rich, E. E. and Wilson, C. H., 42–132. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.Google Scholar
Taub, B. “A Model of Medieval Grain Prices: Comment.” The American Economic Review 77 (12 1987): 1048–53.Google Scholar
Tawney, R. H.Business and Politics Under James I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. “Food Supply and Public Order in Modern Europe” in The Formation of National States in Western Europe, edited by Tilly, Charles, 380–455. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Titow, J. Z.Winchester Yields: A Study in Medieval Agricultural Productivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Usher, Abbott P.The History of the Grain Trade in France: 1400–1710. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913.Google Scholar
Usher, Abbott P. “The General Course of Wheat Prices in France: 1350–1788.” The Review of Economic Statistics 1 (02 1930): 159–69.Google Scholar
de Vries, Jan. The Economy of Europe in An Age of Crisis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.Google Scholar
de Vries, Jan. “Measuring the Impact of Climate on History: The Search for Appropriate Methodologies.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 10 (Spring 1980): 599–630.Google Scholar
Walter, John, and Roger, Schofield. “Famine, Disease and Crises Mortality in Early Modern Society.” In Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern Society, edited by Walter, John and Schofield, Roger, 1–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
World Bank. World Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Wright, Brian D., and Williams, Jeffrey C. “Anti–hoarding Laws: A Stock Condemnation Reconsidered.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 70 (11 1984): 447–55.Google Scholar
Wright, Brian D., and Williams, Jeffrey C. “The Welfare Effects of the Introduction of Storage.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 99 (02 1984): 169–82.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. A. “Some Reflections on Corn Yields and Prices in Preindustrial Economies.” In Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern Society, edited by John, Walter and Roger, Schofield, 235–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. A., and Schofield, R. S.. The Population History of England, 1541–1871. London: Harvard University Press, 1981.Google Scholar