Supply Chains in the Bronze Age
The European car industry has supply chains that criss-cross the English Channel. Therefore, 23 automotive business associations across Europe have now joined forces to caution against a no-deal Brexit. “The UK’s departure from the EU without a deal would trigger a seismic shift in trading conditions, with billions of euros of tariffs threatening to impact consumer choice and affordability on both sides of the Channel,” their joint statement says. However, pan-European supply chains are not a new idea. A research team has now uncovered the geographic origin of archaeological tin artifacts from the Mediterranean. They could demonstrate that tin from Israel, Turkey and Greece originated from tin deposits in Europe. These findings show that even in the Bronze Age, i.e. around 4000 years ago, far-reaching and complex trade routes must have existed between the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe. It is interesting to observe that millenia-old truths have been forgotten by those promoting a no-deal Brexit these days.
Berger, D. et al. (2015). Isotope Systematics and Chemical Composition of Tin Ingots from Mochlos (Crete) and other Late Bronze Age Sites in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea: An Ultimate Key to Tin Provenance? PLoS ONE 14 (6), e0218326. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218326
Supply-chain Trade
Today, I would like to call attention to a highly-cited article by Baldwin & Lopez-Gonzalez, titled Supply-chain Trade: A Portrait of Global Patterns and Several Testable Hypotheses, which was published in The World Economy in 2015. The journal’s perspective – trade policy and other open economy issues – differs from the supply chain management perspective I normally talk about here, which gives this article an interesting complementary perspective. The authors use the term “supply-chain trade” to characterize “complex cross-border flows of goods, know-how, investment, services and people”. They compare two positions: “According to policymakers [supply-chain trade] is transformative; among economists, however, it is typically viewed as trade in goods that happens to be concentrated in parts and components”. Based on two rich datasets, they argue “that the facts are on the side of the policymakers”, as “[f]lourishing supply-chain trade has revolutionised global economic relations and the revolution is still in full swing”. Definitely a good read!
Baldwin, R. & Lopez-Gonzalez, J. (2015). Supply-chain Trade: A Portrait of Global Patterns and Several Testable Hypotheses. The World Economy, 29 (1), 65-83. https://doi.org/10.1111/twec.12189
