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The Modern Silk Road: The Global Raw-Silk Market, 1850–1930

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Debin Ma
Debin Ma
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3305.
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Abstract

From the mid-nineteenth century, the raw-silk trade served as the most important trade linkage between the then still largely closed economies of East Asia and the industrialized West. This article traces the evolution of the global raw-silk market during the period 1850 through 1930. Using comprehensive data on raw-silk prices and quantities and applying co-integration techniques, I find a well-integrated global raw-silk market evolved during this period. This article also examines the evolution of technologies and institutions of the global silk industry, which exhibited characteristics of path dependency and technical interrelatedness.

Type
Papers Presented at the Fifty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 330 - 355
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1996

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