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American Precious Metals and Their Consequences for Early Modern Europe

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Handbook of the History of Money and Currency

Abstract

Over the early modern period and beyond, massive amounts of silver and gold were found and mined in the Americas. In this chapter, I review the consequences for the European economies. Some second-order receiver countries such as England benefited in both the short and long run. First-order receivers such as Spain and Portugal also benefited in the short run, but their continued exposure to the arrival of massive quantities of precious metals eventually led to loss of competitiveness and an institutional resource curse.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Nuno Palma

  2. Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Nuno Palma

  3. CEPR, London, UK

    Nuno Palma

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  1. Nuno Palma
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dpt of Economic History & Institutions, Universidad Carlos III Madrid, Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Stefano Battilossi

  2. RSCAS/Dpt of History and Civilization, European University Institute, Florence, Firenze, Italy

    Youssef Cassis

  3. School of Commerce, Waseda University, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan

    Kazuhiko Yago

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Palma, N. (2019). American Precious Metals and Their Consequences for Early Modern Europe. In: Battilossi, S., Cassis, Y., Yago, K. (eds) Handbook of the History of Money and Currency. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0622-7_58-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0622-7_58-1

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