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Testing the “trickle-down” theory through GECEM database: consumer behaviour, Chinese goods, and trade networks in the Western Mediterranean, 1730–1808

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Abstract

Economic historians have used GDP and its backwards projections to quantify economic growth and the process of early globalisation from year 1 CE to the present day. This has generated a lively debate concerning which methodologies are the most accurate for quantitative history and which data are most reliable. In addition, whilst an overwhelming amount of scholarship has emerged on the supply side, the demand side and family economic changes have been less popular in economic history. In this article, I present a concrete case study to analyse consumer behaviour: the circulation of Chinese goods in western Mediterranean markets during the eighteenth century. In so doing, I test the “trickle-down” theory with new archival data using GECEM Project Database, and apply the OLS and SNA to measure the social distribution of these goods through trade networks’ intermediation. The main result is that the agency of middle social groups—mainly merchants—was changing consumers’ behaviour in western Mediterranean markets, and not local oligarchies and nobility as the “trickle-down” theory has conventionally assessed.

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Fig. 1

Source: author’s own elaboration. AHPM, protocols. Income unit in reales

Fig. 2

Source: author’s own elaboration. AHPM, protocols. Income unit in reales

Fig. 3

Source: author’s own elaboration. AHPM and AHPS, protocols. Price and stock unit in reales

Fig. 4

Source: author’s own elaboration. AHPM and AHPS, protocols. Price and stock unit in reales

Fig. 5

Source: author’s own elaboration

Fig. 6

Source: GECEM Project Database www.gecemdatabase.eu. AHPM and AHPS, protocols; Archive de la Chambre de Commerce de Marseille (hereafter ACCM), Statistique, Serie I; Arquivo Historico de Macau (AHM), Leal Senado

Fig. 7

Source: AHPM, protocols; and Archivo Municipal de Lorca (hereafter AML), merchant letters

Fig. 8

Source: Author’s own elaboration, using GECEM Project Database and Software QGIS v3.12. Base map from Natural Earth raster

Fig. 9

Source: Author’s own elaboration, using GECEM Project Database and Software QGIS v3.12. Base map from Natural Earth raster

Fig. 10

Source: Author’s own elaboration, using GECEM Project Database and Software QGIS v3.12. Base map from Natural Earth raster

Fig. 11

Source: AHPM, protocols; and AML, merchant letters

Fig. 12

Source: author’s own elaboration. ACCM, Statistique, Serie I. Units in pounds

Fig. 13

Source: Author’s own elaboration, using GECEM Project Database and Software QGIS v3.12. Basemap: Pablo de Olavide, “Plano topográfico de la MNYMI, ciudad de Sevilla”, 1771

Fig. 14

Source: author’s own elaboration. AHPS, protocols

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Notes

  1. GECEM Project Database is authored by Perez-Garcia and Diaz-Ordoñez (2021). GECEM Project Database version 2021. The Database is published in Open Access: www.gecemdatabase.eu/index.html. www.gecemdatabase.eu.

  2. The original text was written in Spanish. Herein I present the English translation for a better understanding of the reader.

  3. The original text was written in Spanish. Herein I present the English translation for a better understanding of the reader. Colección Documental del Museo de Tarrasa (hereafter CDMT), ref. CA 93.

  4. CDMT, Royal Decree Banning the Entry of Silk and Textiles from China, Madrid, 1734.

  5. CDMT, Colección Viñas, ref. CA, 241.

  6. ACCM, L. IX, Fonds Roux.

  7. AHPM, 2522, pp. 98–99.

  8. ACCM, H, 151, laines (1687–1796).

Bibliography: Archives cited

  • Archive de La Chambre de Commerce de Marseille (ACCM), France.

  • Archivo Histórico Provincial de Murcia (AHPM), Spain.

  • Archivo Histórico Provincial de Sevilla (AHPS), Spain.

  • Archivo Municipal de Murcia (AMM), Spain.

  • Archivo Municipal de Lorca (AML), Spain.

  • Colección Documental del Museo de Tarrasa (CDMT), Spain.

  • Arquivo Historico de Macau (AHM), Macau.

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Acknowledgements

The assistance and work of Manuel Diaz-Ordoñez has been fundamental to developing the GECEM Project Database’s maps.

Funding

Funding was provided by H2020 European Research Council (ERC-Starting Grant, ref. 679371). This research has been sponsored and financially supported by GECEM (Global Encounters between China and Europe: Trade Networks, Consumption and Cultural Exchanges in Macau and Marseille, 1680-1840), a project hosted by the Pablo de Olavide University (UPO) of Seville (Spain). The GECEM project is funded by the ERC (European Research Council)-Starting Grant, ref. 679371, under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, www.gecem.eu. The P.I. (Principal Investigator) is Professor Manuel Perez Garcia (Distinguished Researcher at UPO). Manuel Perez Garcia is also director and founder of the Global History Network (GHN) in China www.globalhistorynetwork.com

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    Manuel Perez-Garcia

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Correspondence to Manuel Perez-Garcia.

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Perez-Garcia, M. Testing the “trickle-down” theory through GECEM database: consumer behaviour, Chinese goods, and trade networks in the Western Mediterranean, 1730–1808. Cliometrica 17, 567–605 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11698-022-00253-w

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