Patterns of Everyday Exchange: Big Historical Data and the Case of the Basel Advertisement Paper, 1729–1844

Engel Alexander ()
Additional contact information
Engel Alexander: Universität Basel, Departement Geschichte, Hirschgässlein 21, CH-4051 Basel, Germany

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, 2023, vol. 64, issue 1, 143-178

Abstract: With concepts like the consumer revolution or the industrious revolution, the changing behaviour of private households in the 18th and early 19th centuries has become of great interest. The article suggests a new way to observe intentions and decisions, by utilizing a database of 850,000 classified ads from the Basel Avisblatt over a span of 116 years. Changes in food prices constantly altered the discretionary income of households, which forced budget-related decisions. By cross-correlating indicators of discretionary income with the changing number of different types of ads, patterns of utilizing the Avisblatt can be identified, and strategies to stabilize discretionary income deduced.

Keywords: digital history; classified ads; household budgets; discretionary income; economic behaviour; Intelligenzblätter; Kleinanzeigen; Haushaltsbudgets; verfügbares Einkommen; Haushaltsentscheidungen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D N (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2023-0006 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:jbwige:v:64:y:2023:i:1:p:143-178:n:4

DOI: 10.1515/jbwg-2023-0006

Access Statistics for this article

Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook is currently edited by Dieter Ziegler

More articles in Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().