Loïc Charles and Guillaume Daudin «Cross-checking STRO with the French Balance du Commerce data», in Jan Willem Veluwenkamp & Werner Scheltjens (Ed.), Early Modern Shipping and Trade : Novel Approaches Using Sound Toll Registers Online (pp. 133-150). Boston & Leiden: Brill (2018)
Abstract
This chapter looks at trade between France and Northern Europe as reported by the Sound Toll Register Database and the French Balance of Trade statistics from 1750 to 1789.
Although these two sets of data are quite different, we developed a common methodology to analyse comparatively both datasets in order to better understand the nature of the information they contain and to assess how to use them.
Our results are: the comparison of the flows registered in physical quantities and in the number of cargoes by the STRO and the French data registered in values is disappointing. Conversely, the Sound Toll Registers tax indicator is a reasonable proxy for the French data; Norway accounts for a significant part of French imports from Denmark, but it is not the case for French exports to the same country; French exports to each of the Baltic countries share a similar structure and are dominated by wine and colonial goods, there is a strong differentiation of French imports as Swedish exports are made almost exclusively of iron and its derivatives and Danish exports are made mostly of wood and to a lesser extent of European foodstuff, while Russian exports are dominated by primary goods.
Keywords :
Trade Statistics ; Sound ; France ; Eighteenth Century ; Baltic Trade ; Scandinavia ; Russia