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The sixteenth‐century price rise: new evidence from S cotland, 1500–85
Author(s) -
Blakeway Amy
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.014
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1468-0289
pISSN - 0013-0117
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0289.12051
Subject(s) - deflation , economics , inflation (cosmology) , elite , subsistence agriculture , monetary economics , agriculture , economy , monetary policy , politics , history , political science , law , physics , archaeology , theoretical physics
This article contributes to the emerging belief among early modern economic historians that sixteenth‐century inflation was primarily caused by monetary factors. The S cottish case study reveals a strong relationship between coinage debasement and rising prices, a contention strengthened by the fact that the S cottish experience of inflation was high in E uropean terms, and, in particular, stands at a considerable distance from the E nglish pattern. This study includes the first scholarly examination of prices during the 1540s, and reveals that substantial inflation first emerged during this hitherto neglected decade. Prices plateaued during the 1550s, and rose consistently from 1560 to 1585. Meanwhile real wages declined during the 1540s and from 1560 onwards. This article is methodologically innovative in constructing two baskets of commodities, designed to represent the elite experience, alongside a more traditional basket based on a working household. These reveal the divergent experiences of the price rise within S cotland: rising prices hit the poor harder than the rich due to the high cost of domestic agricultural goods in the subsistence basket and the deflationary impact of wages and luxury goods upon the overall elite basket.