Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T22:41:28.041Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Price of Legal Institutions: The Beratlı Merchants in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2015

Cihan Artunç
Cihan Artunç*
Affiliation:
Cihan Artunç is Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721. E-mail: cartunc@email.arizona.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, European embassies in the Ottoman Empire started selling exemption licenses called berats, which granted non-Muslim Ottomans tax exemptions and the option to use European law. I construct a novel price panel for British and French licenses based on primary sources. The evidence reveals that prices were significantly high and varied across countries. Agents acquired multiple berats to enhance their legal options, which they exploited through strategic court switching. By the early 1800s, berat holders had driven other groups from European-Ottoman trade.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 75 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 720 - 748
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Seven Ağır, Edhem Eldem, Amanda Gregg, Timothy Guinnane, K. Kıvanç Karaman, Timur Kuran, Naomi Lamoreaux, Sheilagh Ogilvie, Şevket Pamuk, Paul Rhode, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, Jared Rubin, Francesca Trivellato, the participants at Yale University Economic History Seminar, New Perspectives in Ottoman Economic History at Yale University, the AALIMS Conference, and the Caltech Early Modern Group, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. I am grateful to the staff of the National Archives of the United Kingdom, Archives Nationales, and Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes for their kind assistance. This project was supported by grants from the Yale University MacMillan Center and the Yale Program in Economic History.

References

REFERENCES

Bağış, Ali İhsan. Osmanlı Ticaretinde Gayrimüslimler. Ankara: Turhan Kitabevi, 1983.Google Scholar
Beaujour, Félix. Tableau du Commerce de la Grece. Vol. 2. Ant.-Aug. Renouard, 1800.Google Scholar
van den Boogert, Maurits H.. “Consular Jurisdiction in the Ottoman Legal System in the Eighteenth Century.” Oriente Moderno 22, no. 3 (2003): 613–34.Google Scholar
van den Boogert, Maurits H.. The Capitulations and the Ottoman Legal System: Qadis, Consuls, and Beratlıs in the 18th Century. Leiden: Brill, 2005.Google Scholar
van den Boogert, Maurits H.. “Ottoman Greeks in the Dutch Levant Trade: Collective Strategy and Individual Practice.” Oriente Moderno 86, no. 1 (2006): 129–48.Google Scholar
van den Boogert, Maurits H.. “Legal Reflections on the Jurisprudential Shift Hypothesis.” Turcica 41 (2009): 373–82.Google Scholar
Çizakça, Murat. A Comparative Evolution of Business Partnerships: The Islamic World and Europe, with Specific Reference to the Ottoman Archives. Leiden: Brill, 1996.Google Scholar
Çizakça, Murat, and Kenanoğlu, Macit. “Ottoman merchants and the jurisprudential shift hypothesis.” In Merchants in the Ottoman Empire, edited by Faroqhi, Sureiya and Veinstein, Gilles, 195–213. Paris: Peeters, 2008.Google Scholar
Coale, Ansley, Demeny, Paul, and Vaughan, Barbara. Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations. (Studies in Population) New York: Academic Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Darling, Linda. Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996.Google Scholar
Greif, Avner. “Contract Enforceability and Economic Institutions in Early Trade: The Maghribi Traders' Coalition.” American Economic Review 83, no. 3 (1993): 525–48.Google Scholar
Eldem, Edhem. French Trade in Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century. Leiden: Brill, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
France. Archives Nationales. Affaires Étrangères (AN AE), various years.Google Scholar
France. Centres des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN), various years.Google Scholar
Guinnane, Timothy, Harris, Ron, Lamoreaux, Naomi R., et al. “Putting the Corporation in its Place.” Enterprise and Society 8, no. 3 (2007): 687–729.Google Scholar
Kadı, İsmail Hakkı. Ottoman and Dutch Merchants in the Eighteenth Century: Competition and Cooperation in Ankara, Izmir, and Amsterdam. Leiden: Brill, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Küçükkalay, A. Mesud. “Imports to Smyrna between 1794 and 1802: New Statistics from the Ottoman Sources.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 51, no. 3 (2008): 487–512.Google Scholar
Küçükkalay, Abdullah Mesud, and Elibol, Numan. “Ottoman Imports in the Eighteenth Century: Smyrna (1771–72).” Middle Eastern Studies 42, no. 5 (2006): 723–40.Google Scholar
Kuran, Timur. “The Economic Ascent of the Middle East's Religious Minorities: The Role of Islamic Legal Pluralism.» The Journal of Legal Studies 33, no. 2 (2004): 475–515.Google Scholar
Kuran, Timur. The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Masters, Bruce. “The Sultan's Entrepreneurs: The Avrupa Tüccarıs and the Hayriye Tüccarıs in Syria.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24, no. 4 (1992): 579–97.Google Scholar
McCabe, Ina Baghdiantz, Harlaftis, Gelina, and Minoglou, Ioanna, eds. Diaspora Entrepreneurial Networks. New York: Berg, 2005.Google Scholar
Özmucur, Süleyman, and Pamuk, Şevket. “Real Wages and Standards of Living in the Ottoman Empire, 1489–1914.” Journal of Economic History 62, no. 2 (2002): 293–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pamuk, Şevket. A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Pamuk, Şevket. “Institutional Change and the Longevity of the Ottoman Empire, 1500–1800.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35, no. 2 (2004): 225–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pamuk, Şevket. “Estimating Economic Growth in the Middle East since 1820.” Journal of Economic History 66, no. 3 (2006): 809–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Panzac, Daniel. “International and Domestic Maritime Trade in the Ottoman Empire during the 18th Century.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 24, no. 2 (1992): 189–206.Google Scholar
Pomeranz, Kenneth. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, and Wong, R. Bin. Before and Beyond Divergence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011.Google Scholar
Quataert, Donald. “Population.” In An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire Volume 2, edited by Inalcık, Halil and Quataert, Donald, 777–97. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. (New Approaches to European History) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rey, Francis. La Protection Diplomatique et Consulaire dans les Échelles du Levant et de Barbarie. Paris: L. Larose, 1899.Google Scholar
Tiebout, Charles. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.” The Journal of Political Economy 64, no. 5 (1956): 416–24.Google Scholar
Turkey. Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi [Prime Ministry's Ottoman Archives] (BOA), various years.Google Scholar
United Kingdom. The British Library. Additional Manuscripts (BL Add MS), various years.Google Scholar
United Kingdom. The British Library. India Office Records and Private Papers (BL IOR), various years.Google Scholar
United Kingdom. The National Archives. State Papers (TNA SP), various years.Google Scholar
United Kingdom. The National Archives. Foreign Office Papers (TNA FO), various years.Google Scholar
Vasdravellis, Ioannis K., ed. Historika archeia Makedonias [Historical Archives of Macedonia]. Salonica, 1952.Google Scholar
Wood, Alfred C., “The English Embassy at Constantinople, 1660–1762.” English Historical Review 40, no. 160 (1925): 533–61.Google Scholar