Trading Networks and the Trajectory of Economic Institutions – Europe-Asia, 1500-2000

The International Research Network in Comparative Economic History (henceforth referred to as GDRI, after the French ‘Groupe de recherche international’) proposes to undertake the first large-scale investigation on a variety of economic institutions which have been crucial to the achievement of economic development in Asia and in Europe: business partnerships, share-holding companies, maritime insurance, the bill of exchange and accounting methods, among others. The main purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic comparison of the trajectories of peculiar economic institutions and business practices in different environments: Europe and Asia. It will draw on the analysis of an unpublished collection of private documents, local gazettes, stone inscriptions, prescriptive narratives and legal archives relating to economic development and merchants’ memoirs and genealogies over a period of five centuries, from the 16^th to the 20^th.

Programme en format PDF

Programme

Date

Friday, 29 November 2013

Venue

EHESS, 105, Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris (Subway station: Rennes Line no 12)

• 9:00-9:15, Welcome and introduction to the agenda. Presentation of the GDRI project by François Gipouloux (CNRS, Centre national de la recherche scientifique)
• 9:15-9:30, Patrice Bourdelais (Director, Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales, CNRS)
• 9:30-11:00 Methodological issues: the relevance of comparative economic history Europe-Asia. Chair: Patrick O’Brien, LSE, London school of economics.
  • Economic history in comparative perspective. François Gipouloux (CNRS, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)
  • Cross-cultural borrowing and comparative evolution of institutions between Islamic world and the West. Murat Cizakça (INCEIF, International Centre for Education In Islamic Finance)
• 11:30-12:30 Methodological issues: the relevance of comparative economic history Europe-Asia. Chair: Murat Cizakça, INCEIF, International centre for education In Islamic finance. Imperial regimes in the Orient and mercantilist states in the West from the conquest of Ceuta to the first Opium War. Patrick O’Brien (LSE, London School of Economics)
• 12:30-14:30  Lunch
• 14:30-16:00  Business organisation and company history Chair: Jean-Pascal Bassino, ENSL, Ecole normale supérieure de Lyon. A comparative analysis on the capital investment into Portuguese traders in the XVII century Asian port cities: case of Japan, Siam and Manila. Mihoko Oka (The University of Tokyo), Incorporating textbook business in east Asia: the golden harbor press of Meiji Japan and the commercial press of modern China. Billy K. L. So and Sufumi So (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; George Mason University)
• 16:30-18:00 Business organisation and company history Chair: David Faure, The Chinese University of Hong Kong The political economy of the Cohong system. Kent Deng (LSE, London School of Economics) Long-distance trade and the development of credit institutions in early modern Britain and Japan. Mina Ishizu (Post-doctoral researcher, URKEW, London School of Economics.)

Date

Saturday, 30 November 2013

Venue

EHESS, 105, Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris (Subway station: Rennes Line no 12)

• 9:30-11:00 Capital pooling and accounting methods Chair: Mihoko Oka, The University of Tokyo.

• Wills and property allocation of Chinese in Batavia during the end of 18th century. A case study on Lieutenant Gao Genguan’s testament and distribution of his property. Nie Dening (Xiamen University).
• The Birth of the Corporation: East and West. Ron Harris (Tel-Aviv University).
• 11:30-13:00 Capital pooling and accounting methods Chair: Billy K. L. So, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Capital structure of Shanxi merchants- 17-19th Century Liu Jiansheng (Shanxi University). Banking with regulations: Chinese native banks from the sixteenth to the twentieth century? David Faure (The Chinese University of Hong Kong).
• 14:30-16:00    Session 4-a: Ways of capital accumulation and profit outcomes Chair: Nie Dening, Xiamen University.
  • Presentation of the website GDRI Eurasiatrajeco. Aline Athus, Chi-Han Ai,  (EHESS, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)
  • East-West maritime trade: the freedom of navigation and innocent passage in the Red Sea, early documentary and theological evidence. Hassan Khalilieh, (University of Haifa)
• 16:30-18:00 Ways of capital accumulation and profit outcomes Chair: Ron Harris, Tel-Aviv University.
  • The escape from poverty in late Medieval Japan real wages in Kyoto and in European cities (1250-1850). Jean-Pascal Bassino (ENSL, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon)
  • British economic development in face of the little and great divergence, ca. 1200-1900. Bas van Leeuwen (University of Utrecht)

Jacqueline Nivard

Jacqueline Nivard, Centre d'études sur la Chine moderne et contemporaine

Voir tous les articles