The significance of the Cape trade route to economic activity in the Cape Colony: a medium-term business cycle analysis

Willem Boshoff and Johan Fourie

European Review of Economic History, 2010, vol. 14, issue 3, 469-503

Abstract: Trade is a critical component of economic growth in newly settled societies. This article tests the impact of ship traffic on the Cape economy using a time-series smoothing technique borrowed from the business cycle literature and employing an econometric procedure to test for long-run relationships. The results suggest a strong systematic co-movement between wheat production and ship traffic, with less evidence for wine production and stock-herding activities. While ship traffic created demand for wheat exports, the size of the co-movement provides evidence that ship traffic also stimulated local demand through secondary and tertiary sector activities, supporting the hypothesis that ship traffic acted as a catalyst for growth in the Cape economy.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (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:cup:ereveh:v:14:y:2010:i:03:p:469-503_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Review of Economic History from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().