Turning Points in Leadership: Shipping Technology in the Portuguese and Dutch Merchant Empires

Claudia Rei ()

No 1123, Vanderbilt University Department of Economics Working Papers from Vanderbilt University Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper focuses on the implications of organizational control on the race for economic leadership across merchant empires. Poor organizational choices reduce incentives to invest, which in turn stifle technological improvements and make leading empires lag behind new entrants. Using historical evidence on shipping technology, I show that this may have been a factor behind the loss of leadership of the Portuguese merchant empire in the late sixteenth century.

Keywords: Merchant empires; Shipping technology; Organization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N23 N73 O14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/vu11-w23.pdf First version, October 2011 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:van:wpaper:1123

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