Introduction : risk and uncertainty -- Staying informed : the risks of poor information in Atlantic world trade -- The institutions of trade and the reduction of market risk : the convoy system -- Comercio libre and the rise of commercial risk -- The rising demand for credit and the escalation of risk in the post-1778 era -- Trade in war and peace -- Underwriting risk : the structure and organization of insurance partnerships in late eighteenth-century Cadiz -- Insuring against risk : analysis of insurance policies and the perception of risk in Atlantic world trade -- War and commercial crisis : the profitability of the Cadiz insurance industry in the 1790s -- Conclusion : staying afloat
Summary
Early modern, long-distance trade was fraught with risk and uncertainty, driving merchants to seek means to reduce them. In the traditional historiography on Spanish colonial trade, the role of risk is largely ignored. Instead, the guild (consulado) merchants are depicted as anti-competitive monopolists who manipulated markets and exploited colonial consumers. This book argues that much of the commercial behaviour interpreted by modern historians as predatory was instead designed to reduce the uncertainty and risk of Atlantic world trade
