TY  - JOUR
AU  - Findlay, Ronald
AU  - O'Rourke, Kevin H
TI  - Commodity Market Integration, 1500-2000
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8579
PY  - 2001
Y2  - November 2001
DO  - 10.3386/w8579
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8579
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8579.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ronald Findlay

Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke
NYU Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Campus
Social Science (A5), 1193
P.O. Box 129188
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates
Tel: +971 2 628 7674
E-Mail: kevin.orourke@nyu.edu
M1  - published as Ronald Findlay, Kevin H. O'Rourke. "Commodity Market Integration, 1500-2000," in Michael D. Bordo, Alan M. Taylor and Jeffrey G. Williamson, editors, "Globalization in Historical Perspective" University of Chicago Press (2003)

AB  - This paper provides a summary of what is known about trends in international commodity market integration during the second half of the second millennium. The range of goods which have been traded between continents since the Voyages of Discovery has steadily increased over time, and there has been substantial commodity market integration over the period, driven by technology in the 19th century and politics in the late 20th century. However, this trend towards greater market integration was not monotonic; it was periodically interrupted by shocks such as wars and world depressions, or by endogenous political responses to the distributional effects of globalization itself. In some periods politics has reinforced the effects of technology, while in other periods it has offset them. In several cases, severe shocks have had long-run effects on the international integration of commodity markets, as a result of politically induced hysteresis. Finally, we know remarkably little about international commodity market integration during the 20th century.
ER  -