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  • Economic History Review Accepted.

    Rights statement: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Downs, C. (2017), Networks, trust, and risk mitigation during the American Revolutionary War: a case study. The Economic History Review, 70: 509–528. doi:10.1111/ehr.12385 which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ehr.12385/abstract This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.

    Accepted author manuscript, 566 KB, PDF document

    Available under license: CC BY-NC: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

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Networks, trust and risk mitigation during the American revolutionary war: a case study

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>05/2017
<mark>Journal</mark>Economic History Review
Issue number2
Volume70
Number of pages20
Pages (from-to)509-528
Publication StatusPublished
Early online date9/11/16
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This article takes a case study approach to the question of how entrepreneurs developed and used networks to support trade during the American Revolutionary War (American War of Independence). Using the business letter books of Daniel Eccleston of Lancaster covering January
1780 to December 1781 the paper shows how he used trust-building activities and developed open networks in Britain and the West Indies in order to build, sustain, maintain and diversify his commercial activities to mitigate risk and develop new opportunities. Ecclestons’s letters illustrate
a competitive market in which entrepreneurs helped drive the industrial revolution through stimulating demand and encouraging trade. They show that mutual trust was the foundation of strong networks, and that networks were significant in underpinning entrepreneurial success through allowing the mitigation of business risk and offering the opportunity for diversification supported by the network. The paper makes use of the work of Casson (1995; 2011), Haggerty (2012), Pearson and Richardson (2001) and Wilson and Pop (2003a; 2003b) .

Bibliographic note

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Downs, C. (2017), Networks, trust, and risk mitigation during the American Revolutionary War: a case study. The Economic History Review, 70: 509–528. doi:10.1111/ehr.12385 which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ehr.12385/abstract This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.