Abstract
The chapter examines the development of elements that in combination provided vital commercial infrastructure for the global shipping industry. Specifically, it discusses the roles of key institutions, such as the Baltic Mercantile and Shipping Exchange, Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, the Lloyd’s of London insurance market and various commodity and financial markets, in facilitating exchanges needed to sustain oceanic transport. In addition to these institutions’ formal attributes, for example, their constitutions and rules, the discussion considers their informal characteristics, including the customs, routines and behavioural patterns observed by participants. Together, these formal and informal institutional arrangements have supported shipping by disseminating information, reducing uncertainty and mitigating transaction costs associated with this volatile industry.1 The chapter also pursues a secondary, somewhat abstract aim; it explores how markets operate and attempts to show how various mechanisms have generated efficiencies.
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Notes
See Douglass C. North (1990) Institutions, Institutional Change, and Economic Performance ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
C. H. Lee (1986) The British Economy since 1700 ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press ).
P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins (1986) ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Overseas Expansion I. The Old Colonial System, 1688–1850’, Economic History Review, Second Series, XXXIX, pp. 501–26; (1987) ‘Gentlemanly Capitalism and British Overseas Expansion II. New Imperialism, 1850–1945’, Economic History Review, Second Series, XL, pp. 1–27.
Charles Wright and C. Ernest Fayle (1927) A History of Lloyd’s ( London: Blades, East & Blades ), p. 3.
Markman Ellis (2004) The Coffee House: A Cultural History (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson), pp. 150 and 167.
Graeme Milne (2006) North East England, 1850–1914 ( Woodbridge: The Boydell Press ), p. 113.
Milne, North East England, p. 117; Gordon Boyce (2010) ‘Language and Culture in a Liverpool Merchant Family Firm, 1870–1950’, Business History Review, 84, p. 13.
Bernard Attard (2000) ‘Making a Market: The Jobbers of the London Stock Exchange, 1800–1986’, Financial History Review, 7, pp. 6–24.
Hugh Barty-King (1977) The Baltic Exchange The History of a Unique Market ( London: Hutchinson Benham ), p. 3.
See R.C. Michie (1999) The London Stock Exchange ( Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Yrjö Kaukiainen (2001) ‘Shrinking the World: Improvements in the Speed of Information Transmission, c. 1820–1870’, European Review of Economic History, IV, pp. 1–28.
G.E. Golding and D. King-Page (1952) A History of Lloyd’s ( London: Lloyd’s ), pp. 10–11.
Anthony Brown (1980) Cuthbert Heath Member of Lloyd’s ( London: David and Clark ), pp. 71–7.
George Blake (1961) Lloyd’s Register of Shipping, 1760–1960 (Crawley, Sussex: Lloyd’s ), pp. 50–1.
Adam Kirkaldy (1914) British Shipping Its History, Organization, and Importance ( London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner ), pp. 225–7.
Robert Gibson-Jarvie (1983) The London Metal Exchange ( Cambridge: Nicholls ), pp. 12–5.
David J. Jeremy (1998) A Business History of Britain, 1900–1990s ( Oxford: Oxford University Press ), p. 270.
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© 2012 Gordon Boyce
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Boyce, G. (2012). The Development of Commercial Infrastructure for World Shipping. In: Harlaftis, G., Tenold, S., Valdaliso, J.M. (eds) The World’s Key Industry. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137003751_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137003751_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35029-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-00375-1
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