Road transport productivity in the sixteenth-century Low Countries : the case of Brabant, 1450-1650


== Abstract ==

 Though there is a consensus that transport plays a central role in economic development, for the period before the eighteenth century there is a lack of strategic information for assessing the importance of road transport productivity changes in economic development. Transport prices in particular are crucial missing pieces of the puzzle. Sources rarely reveal information that meets the standards of reliable price history. However, it is possible to create a reliable transport price series on the basis of the transport of millstones to ducal mills in Brabant. Assessing the impact of the transport productivity changes' that can be inferred from this transport price series is a hazardous exercise. Moreover, as Masschaele has observed, land transport prices closely match general agricultural price trends. Land transport was essentially an agricultural service, determined both by cost (especially horse provender) and income effects. Transport price inflation was not demand-led. However, while transport did not impede urbanization and economic growth, conversely, in sixteenth-century Brabanta highly urbanized region that experienced considerable growth in the volume of land transportno significant land transport productivity gains were achieved.


== Original document ==

The different versions of the original document can be found in:

* [https://hdl.handle.net/10067/1524000151162165141 https://hdl.handle.net/10067/1524000151162165141]

* [https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fehr.12536 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fehr.12536],
: [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/ehr.12536/fullpdf http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/wol1/doi/10.1111/ehr.12536/fullpdf],
: [http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12536 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ehr.12536] under the license http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/tdm_license_1.1

* [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ehr.12536 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ehr.12536],
: [https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v71y2018i3p707-726.html https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v71y2018i3p707-726.html],
: [https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2712269369 https://academic.microsoft.com/#/detail/2712269369]