The price of bread : regulating the market in the Dutch Republic / Jan de Vries.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

De Vries, Jan, 1943 November 14- author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in economic history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Bread--Prices--Government policy--Netherlands.

Bread.

Bread--Prices--Government policy.

Netherlands--Economic conditions.

Netherlands.

Economic conditions.

Bread--Prices.

Physical Description:

xix, 515 pages : maps, charts ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Summary:

"A prime contemporary concern - how to maintain fair market relations - is addressed through this study of the regulation of bread prices. This was the single most important economic reality of Europe's daily life in the early modern period. Jan de Vries uses the Dutch Republic as a case study of how the market functioned and how the regulatory system evolved and acted. The ways in which consumer behavior adapted to these structures, and the state interacted with producers and consumers in the pursuit of its own interests, had major implications for the measurement of living standards in this period. The long-term consequences of the Dutch state's interventions reveal how capitalist economies, far from being the outcome of unfettered market economics, are inextricably linked with regulatory fiscal regimes. The humble loaf serves as a prism through which to explore major developments in early modern European society and how public market regulation affected private economic life"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Part 1. The regulatory regime : protecting the consumer and strengthening the state. Bread price regulation in Europe before the 1590s

Free trade in grain?

The Dutch broodzetting : the introduction of a 'new system' of bread price regulation

Administering and enforcing the new bread price regulations

The Dutch 'peculiar institution'

Part 2. Industrial organization : the producers in a regulated industry. Grain : the interaction of international trade and domestic production

The milling sector : a trade harnessed to raison d'etat?

The baking enterprise : efficiency versus convenience

The structure of bread prices

Part 3. Consumer welfare and consumer choice. Crise de subsistence : did price regulation shelter consumers from food crises?

Choosing what to eat in the early modern era

Bread consumption : a wheat bread revolution?

Measuring the standard of living : a demand-side approach

Part 4. Perspective and demise. Dutch bread price regulation in international perspective

Bread price regulation renewed and abolished, 1776-1855.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 479-508) and index.

Other Format:

ebook version :

ISBN:

9781108476386

1108476384

OCLC:

1083701330