The Hamburg Marine Insurance, 1736–1859

Since 1736, Hamburg’s price current consistently listed the marine insurance premiums of the Hanseatic Town as well as of many other European ports. Based on the long-term analysis of these quotations over the course of about 120 years, this book sheds light on the factors of influence (such as weather conditions, wars and piracy, to name a few) which interfered with European and intercontinental maritime trade.

The cause of the long-term decline of premium rates and, by extension also of transaction costs is understood as a consequence of both the restoration of security on the high seas after the Napoleonic Wars and the elimination of the last nests of piracy around 1830.