During the years before 1914 the world’s still largely unused resources were brought increasingly within the framework of a single world economy. This process owed much to Britain’s ability to export capital on a scale which has never since been equalled. Yet periods of heavy investment overseas alternated with home investment booms that absorbed the greater part of Britain’s savings. The reasons for this fluctuation, and the mechanism which linked Britain’s economic development with the rest of the world, are still subject to debate. This volume illuminates the problems of the global economy today by examining different interpretations and research from history.

In this third volume of collected papers, Jacob Price explores the structural and political relations of the Atlantic trade in the 18th century. A first selection on mercantile activity, blends research on the records of individual firms with aggregate customs data to show that definitive advantages of scale encouraged the concentration of trade into fewer and larger hands in sectors like tobacco, sugar and slaves. These studies also show the importance of credit to the development of trade, a theme taken up in the section on monetary issues, reprinting the author's well-known paper on multilateralism with a specifically written supplement 'Multilateralism Revisited'. A final section on the politics of customs reform gives the contemporary political background to the records which Price has explored so thoroughly.