2026/02/02 by Esther Sahle · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Historical Economic and Social Studies #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Financial Crisis of the 21st Century
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1740022825100314
openalex publication_date 2026/02/02 · openalex created_date 2026/02/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Abstract Recent scholarship locates the origins of modern free trade policies in the early modern free port movement. This historiography has focused on the intellectual and political history of free ports and emphasized the importance of local and regional factors in shaping trade liberalizations in different European countries and colonies. Based on evidence from eighteenth-century Hamburg, this article proposes a different reading: it argues that free trade policies emerged in response to Atlantic trade expansion. The sources suggest that merchants and magistrates were aware of the monumental change which the growth of the Atlantic trade presented and the economic opportunities it provided. The liberalization of individual ports aimed to capture a greater share of that commerce. Free ports therefore constitute an early example of global economic change driving local European policymaking.