Analytical Framework and Qualitative Observations

It develops a simple theory of Cournot strategic interactions between firms as basic framework and discusses behaviour of firms from dimensions of market structure, technology, scale economies, and value-chains (subcontracting). It demonstrates how large firms derived monopoly power in the product markets and monopsony power in the input markets. This, in turn, made them inward oriented in search of monopoly power in the Pre-reforms era. On the other hand, small and medium scale firms faced highly competitive conditions and high transactions costs in the domestic markets especially in the sub-contracting linkages with large firms. This, in turn, drove relatively efficient small and medium firms to exports where they are price takers facing lesser degree of transaction costs. The chapter also traces how exporting small and medium firms realized efficiency in production processes.

Privateering in Medieval England

This paper offers a typology of privateering in late medieval England as an essential first step in gathering data on its economic and social impact. In coding such activities for a prosopographical database of privateers, I identified four types of commerce raiding that could potentially be classified as privateering. (1) Reprisals authorized by letters of marque from a government official, although a relatively small number seem to have involved action at sea; (2) licenses granted by the Crown to attack the king’s enemies at sea, although such attacks could be legal without licenses, which survive primarily for two periods, 1399-1403 and 1436-41, when they reflect specific Crown policies; (3) commissions to safeguard the sea or guard the coast, although if paid by the Crown for this service, this commerce raiding was under naval auspices and technically not privateering; and (4) private vessels and crews allowed to attack enemy shipping when hired to provide protection for wine convoys or fishermen (the latter duty was called wafting which became a notorious cover for those seeking to profit from plunder at sea). Contemporaries, I argue, recognized the distinction between privateering and piracy, evident from their understanding of the rules regarding the division of prize—which varied according to whether one was on naval service, or operating under a privateering license, or engaged in outright piracy—and from the measures that the Crown had to keep coming up with to counteract the inventive subterfuges of those who knew that the line between privateering and piracy could be a dangerous one to cross. Privateering deserves more attention as a motivation for maritime profit-taking since the gains from privateering were just as lucrative as those of piracy, and the transactions costs lower in terms of potential legal expenses and the need to find buyers for illegal goods and ships. This paper was first given at the Fifth International Congress of Maritime History in Greenwich, June 2008.