Do Frontiers give or do frontiers take ? The case of intercontinental trade in France at the end of the Ancien Régime

This paper studies the role of French intercontinental trade in the accumulation of domestic capital at the end of the Ancien Régime. It uses O’Brien’s method to measure the amount of annual profits generated from this sector. The marginal profits are then computed by estimating what return the resources invested in the intercontinental sector would have had if they had been invested domestically instead. Finally, using the notion of “hearth of growth,” the paper suggests that international trade was important for the French economy in spite of its modest aggregate returns.