Şevket Pamuk

Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective, 1500–1914

The early modern era witnessed the formation across Europe of centralized states that captured increasing shares of resources as taxes. These states not only enjoyed greater capacity to deal with domestic and external challenges, they were also able to shield their economies better against wars. This article examines the Ottoman experience with fiscal centralization using recently compiled evidence from budgets. It shows that due to high shares of intermediaries, Ottoman revenues lagged behind those of other states in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Ottomans responded to military defeats, however, and achieved significant increases in central revenues during the nineteenth century.

Different Paths to the Modern State in Europe: The Interaction Between Warfare, Economic Structure, and Political Regime

Theoretical work on taxation and state-building borrows heavily from early modern European experience. While a number of European states increased centralized tax revenues during this period, for others revenues stagnated or even declined and these variations have motivated alternative arguments for the determinants of fiscal and state capacity. This study reviews the arguments concerning the three determinants that have received most attention, namely warfare, economic structure, and political regime, and tests them by making use of a new and comprehensive tax revenue dataset. Our main finding is that these three determinants worked in interaction with each other. Specifically, when under pressure of war, it was representative regimes in more urbanized-commercial economies and authoritarian regimes in more rural-agrarian economies that tended to better aggregate domestic interests towards state-building.

Ottoman De-Industrialization, 1800-1913: Assessing the Magnitude, Impact, and Response

India and Britain were much bigger players in the eighteenth-century world market for manufactures than were Egypt, the Levant, and the core of the Ottoman Empire, but these eastern Mediterranean regions did export carpets, silks, and other textiles to Europe and the east. By the middle of the nineteenth century, they had lost most of their export market and much of their domestic market to globalization forces and rapid productivity growth in European manufacturing. How different was the Ottoman experience from the rest of the poor periphery? Was de-industrialization more or less pronounced? Was the terms of trade effect bigger or smaller? How much of Ottoman de-industrialization was due to falling world trade barriers such as ocean transport revolutions and European liberal trade policy, how much due to factory-based productivity advance in Europe, how much to declining Ottoman competitiveness in manufacturing, how much to Ottoman railroads penetrating the interior, and how much to Ottoman policy? This article uses a price-dual approach to seek the answers.

Globalization, Industrialization and Changing Politics in Turkey

the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has dominated the agenda in Turkey during the last year. In times like these, it is not easy to discuss anything other than the latest political developments. Nonetheless, I will try to adopt a longer term perspective and explore what I consider to be one of the most important economic and social developments in Turkey in recent decades which has also played an important role in the rise of AKP. During its first term in office (2002-2007), AKP followed moderate policies, and remarkably, did more for European integration of Turkey than any other Turkish government. It is important to understand AKP and why they have been successful. Undoubtedly, there are many causes for their electoral success. Amongst the economic causes, the strong recovery since the crisis of 2001 has been emphasized but another development that has not been sufficiently recognized is the rise in recent decades of new industrial centers across the Anatolian heartland, a development ultimately related to globalization and the export oriented industrialization in Turkey since the 1980s. In this brief comment, I intend to link the rise of AKP to export-oriented industrialization and the growing outward orientation of Turkey. I will also point to the rise of a new middle class during that process. I will argue this new class has been influential in the transformation and moderation of AKP as well as its electoral success.

Plagues, Wages, and Economic Change in the Islamic Middle East, 700–1500

This study establishes long-term trends in the purchasing power of the wages of unskilled workers and develops estimates for GDP per capita for medieval Egypt and Iraq. Wages were heavily influenced by two long-lasting demographic shocks, the Justinian Plague and the Black Death and the slow population recovery that followed. As a result, they remained above the subsistence minimum for most of the medieval era. We also argue that the environment of high wages that emerged after the Justinian Plague contributed to the Golden Age of Islam by creating demand for higher income goods.

The Ottoman Empire in the “Great Depression” of 1873–1896

Contrary to the view that the periphery of the world economy benefited from rapidly expanding trade, the Ottoman economy actually faced a distinctly unfavorable world conjuncture during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Rates of growth of foreign trade dropped, external terms of trade deteriorated, declining wheat prices affected peasant producers, and the establishment of European control over Ottoman finances led to large debt payments abroad.Indirect data indicate that rates of change of agricultural and aggregate production were also lower during the “Great Depression†as compared to the later period.

In the Absence of Domestic Currency: Debased European Coinage in the Seventeenth–Century Ottoman Empire

The Near East was subject to many of the same fiscal and monetary forces that affected Europe and parts of Asia during the early modem era. For almost two decades during the seventeenth century, debased European coinage circulated widely in Ottoman markets at values far above their specie content. This article provides an explanation in terms of Ottoman fiscal deficits, currency instability, currency substitution, and decline in local silver mines all of which led to the closure of mints. The reasons behind the conspicuous absence of Ottoman copper coinage during this period are also explored.

Urban Real Wages Around the Eastern Mediterranean in Comparative Perspective, 1100–2000

This study examines the long-term trends in wages of skilled and unskilled construction workers in Constantinople-Istanbul, and to a lesser extent in other urban centers in the Near East and the Balkans from about 1100 until the present. It also compares long-term trends in eastern Mediterranean wages with those elsewhere in Europe. Two events had significant and long-lasting impacts on urban real wages around the eastern Mediterranean during the last millennium: the Black Death and modern economic growth. The available price and wage data also point to the existence of a gap in urban real wages between northwestern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean during the first half of the sixteenth century.

Anatolia and Egypt during the Nineteenth Century: A Comparison of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment

For the economies of the Middle East, the nineteenth century was a period of rapid integration into the world economy. Some of the forces behind this process came from Europe. In the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain and later the Continental economies began to turn towards areas beyond Europe in order to establish markets for their manufactures and also secure inexpensive sources of foodstuffs and raw materials. As a result, European commercial penetration into the Middle East gained new momentum in the 1820s after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Later, starting around mid-century, commercial penetration began to be accompanied by European investments in the Middle East in the forms of lending to governments and direct investment in railways, ports, banks, trading companies, and even agricultural land. A large part of this investment served to increase the export orientation of the Middle Eastern economies.

Fiscal Centralisation and the Rise of the Modern State in the Ottoman Empire

This article reviews the evolution of Ottoman fiscal institutions and analyses long-term trends in the revenues of the Ottoman central administration from the sixteenth century until World War I. It also compares long-term trends in Ottoman revenues with those of European, and to a lesser extent, Asian states. The Ottomans were often involved in wars with their European neighbours but much less so with their neighbours in Asia where interstate rivalry was less intense. Wars put enormous pressure on the states and their survival depended closely on their ability raise revenue. As a result, wars, centralisation of finances and emergence of centralised states were interrelated processes. Revenues of the Ottoman central administration lagged well behind its European neighbours until the end of the eighteenth century because local elites retained large part of the revenues. However, the centralising reforms of the nineteenth century enabled the Ottomans to raise their central revenues significantly and survive until World War I.