Institutional-Legal Crisis and Commercial Transformation in the 18th Century: British Levant Company Merchants in the Balkans

U. Serdar Serdaroglu ()
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U. Serdar Serdaroglu: Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics, Department of Economic History, Turkey

Proceedings of the Centre for Economic History Research, 2019, vol. 4, 31-42

Abstract: Since its foundation until the 18th century, the Levant Company passed through many phases. The decisions made by the Company in 1744 and 1753 changed its structure, procedure of membership and method of shipping, giving birth to a new institutional-organizational structure. Before these changes, the company was suffering under the institutional crises in the 18th century. The decision taken in 1744 and 1753 by the Company that liberalized the practice of shipping. As a result of this institutional transformation, the number of the members of the Company increased rapidly in the Balkans. Also, aforementioned institutional transformation caused the international trading enterprises of British merchants especially in the Balkan port cities. This paper has been written with the purpose of contributing to the existing general literature on the ‘Balkans Trade’ while at the same time being informed by recent advances in research based on Ottoman-British archival resources.

Keywords: British Levant Company; Aegean Trade; Institutional Changes; Ottoman Empire; Merchants; Selanik (Thessaloniki); Izmir (Smyrna) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N23 N43 N73 N93 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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