Cost–distance ratio in change: transmission rates of commercial correspondence in the North and Baltic Sea region, 1732–1808

Hannes Vinnal

Scandinavian Economic History Review, 2018, vol. 66, issue 3, 264-281

Abstract: Postage accounts kept by merchants active in North and Baltic Sea trade are used to track the development of transmitting costs of remote information. As a long-run aggregated trend in terms of the real price, the postage stayed approximately at the same level until 1770s and decreased substantially thereafter. War factor proved to have had a variable influence. Increased demand on information exchange, driven by booming trade in this period, arguably promoted lower-cost transmission. The present paper also reveals that, over time, international postage was increasingly a function of geographical distance and, due to the changes in means of transmission and also due to the specific tariff policy of national Posts, there was significant cost–space convergence regarding domestic transmission while the same trend was much less dominant at an international level.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1080/03585522.2018.1457979

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