New imperial economies

This chapter provides an integrated view of the Iberian imperial economies of the 18th century. It deals with a short introduction to the peninsular economies and discusses the Atlantic looking at the trading regimes that linked the Americas and the peninsula. The chapter argues that such an integrated view offers a new perspective and brings common trends and substantial divergences into sharper relief. It describes how the relationship between market and states developed. The sheer size would seem to advise against such an attempt. Indeed, there are few survey texts that have even tried to depict eighteenth-century Spanish America, Brazil, peninsular Spain or Portugal on their own from an economic perspective. Early modern European long-distance trade was an important source of revenue and practically everywhere strongly regulated by states, cities, and/or guilds. This was even more the case for European colonial intercontinental trade.