Markets, standards and transactions: measurements in nineteenth-century British economy

This thesis is concerned with measurements used in economic activity and investigates how historical markets managed transactional problems due to unreliable measurements. Existing literature has generally associated the problems of measurements in historical markets with the lack of uniformity in weights and measures. This thesis shows that metrological standardization was not sufficient to ensure reliability of measurements. Markets developed mensuration practices that enabled markets to address specific transactional issues in micro-contexts. This involved, in addition to the use of standardized metrology, improved governance of transactions, third party monitoring and guaranteeing, and other institutional solutions. Historical institutional arrangements were altered or replaced as a result of changing or standardizing mensuration practices. The thesis also makes a conceptual contribution in terms of understanding the process of standardization. It shows how, while standards can be inflexible and rationalized (i.e. limited in number), standardized practices can incorporate a number of such standards and be flexible in terms which standard to be used in a given context. Analytically, standardized practices are institutional objects that are determined endogenously and are formed in 'packages' that create interlinks between standards, other artefacts, rules and people. These arguments are developed by studying three detailed cases of mensuration practices in the British economy during the nineteenth-century. The case of the London Coal Trade examines how altered mensuration practices gave buyers greater assurance that the amount of coal they received was actually the amount they purchased. The case of the wire industry illustrates the struggles to define a uniform set of wire sizes that could overcome the disputes arising from incompatible and multiple ways of measuring wire sizes. The case of the wheat markets illustrates the complexity involved in developing standards of measurements such that quality could be reliably measured ex-ante. Through these case studies, the thesis shows how markets developed different mensuration practices to manage measurements in a given context

Investigating the factors affecting the development of a sustainable national accreditation body for engineering and technology laboratories in North Africa

Quality Assurance has become one of the prime factors for consideration by a customer whether a person or organisation in order to achieve highly competitive industrial activity. Within the developing countries there is limited awareness among the public regarding the role and purpose of accreditation. This constitutes a major constraint and it is one of several constraints for accreditation, specifically, in the Arab region. The primary objective of a National Accreditation Body is to enable organisations to attain continuous performance improvement, maintain consistency, promote quality awareness and achieve the desired level of business excellence. However, a major issue arises as to the application of the NABs in different cultural and operational backgrounds, and how to take account of additional complexities of social systems. Therefore accreditation in the developing countries need to establish a new strategy on accreditation to be able to demonstrate the capability to compete internationally taking account of the difficulties, barriers, confidence and international acceptance. The research was carried out in three phases. Phase one established a conceptual framework based on a literature review and a quantitative and qualitative study. It described seven important themes containing 94 variables as critical to a sustainable accreditation scheme. Phase two provided empirical studies of the Quality Assurance approaches adopted in a case study in Tunisia. The field research surveyed the selected samples from the Tunisian Accreditation Council (TUNAC) and Central Laboratories for Testing and Analyses’(LCAE) population using a questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to examine satisfaction and motivation, as well as gauging the effectiveness of the TUNAC as determined by an analysis of the improvements that could be directly associated with its implementation of a sustainable accreditation scheme. The questionnaires achieved over 84% response rate and the resulting data set was comprehensive and the analysis robust. An additional element of the research compared the results of the questionnaire results with the perceptions of the TUNAC management. In-depth analyses of the case study plus interviews with decision makers (TUNAC management) provided a context and guidance in the development of a sustainable accreditation framework. Then in Phase three the external PESTILE factors of North Africa were analysed and linked to the internal factors to construct and propose a sustainable accreditation framework. The analysis of the proposed framework has led to the development of a draft questionnaire to be used by prospective accreditation bodies as a measuring tool against its current accreditation process. The main contributions of this research are the development of a sustainable accreditation framework, which was developed and cross validated and development of a PESTILE framework which has never been used before in developing sustainable frameworks. Moreover the findings of this study enrich the debate on accreditation and Quality Assurance in literature

Calico to Whiskey: A case study on the development of the distilling industry in the Naas Revenue Collection District, 1700-1921

This thesis demonstrates how the evolution and direction of the Irish distilling industry was determined by a number of influences including legislation, political expediency, revenue maximisation and technical advances. The relationship is shown by examining the growth, consolidation and eventual decline of the spirit distilling industry in the Naas revenue collection district. The thesis consists of a two-part examination of the subject. Part one discusses the major influences shaping Irish distilling. Part two seeks evidence for the effects of these influences in the history of distilling in the Naas revenue collection district. In part one the initial chapter examines the political origins of the excise while chapter two explores the country-wide administrative structures and enabling legislation which ensured the assessment of excise liabilities and the secure remittance of the resulting revenue to the treasury. Chapter three examines examples of the technology employed by the excise to support revenue collection. Part two of the thesis traces distilling in the Naas excise collection area. The initial chapter in this section (chapter four) is devoted to the eighteenth century when distilling consisted of many successful family-run craft concerns which later evolved into a smaller number of larger industrial-scale distilleries. The means by which the authorities managed the industry in the Naas excise collection are reviewed in chapter five, which examines the revenue administration in this area. The location of distilling enterprises during the nineteenth century is described in chapter six and the principle families involved are identified. Chapter seven provides an insight into the later nineteenth century when pressures concerning product specifications and quality emerged. These eventually led to the patenting of a novel distillation technique and so furthered demands for a legal definition for Irish whiskey

Storage Matters: Managing Grain, Securing Finance, and Building Markets

This dissertation analyzes the nexus of agriculture and finance, specifically the mediating role of grain storage. How grain markets are organized and governed is foundational to food security. Hundreds of millions of metric tonnes of grain are traded and moved around the world, and hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in grain commodities via global commodity exchanges. During the late 20th century, agricultural commodity exchanges (ACEs) usurped other marketing models such as state marketing boards, and now play an increasingly influential role in global agricultural commodities. The development of ACEs and changes in grain storage over the twentieth century had implications for how financial actors could or could not access grain as a financial asset. To understand grain storage in relation to finance, I examine the governance of storage by developing a political history of storage through the three processes of stabilization – ideational, regulatory and physical. The thesis is guided by a question: How does the examination of twentieth century US grain storage stabilization – the ideas, regulations and physical infrastructures – help us to understand the financialization of agriculture? To answer this question, I draw from international political economy (IPE) scholars and actor-network theory (ANT) to show how the stabilization of grain requires an assemblage of regulations, technologies and economic ideas that make up the politics of grain storage, and how a close examination of grain-storage governance helps to explain the financialization of agricultural commodities. Financialization of agricultural commodities is the work of assembling and turning a bushel of corn, or any other agricultural good – primarily grain – into a financial asset stream. This definition highlights the role that grain storage plays in commodity speculation, and encompasses the mundane practices of collecting and managing amassed grain in containers. This dissertation shows how ideas, regulations, and industrial projects to stabilize and store grain for collateral contribute to the emergence of ACEs as a model of global grain marketing. By looking beyond corner offices, commodity exchanges and other institutions, the theoretical framework brings non-human storage actors into view by drawing attention to the assemblages of grain bins, fumigants, dryers, documents and regulations that attempt to stabilize unruly grains, and to leverage stored grain for credit and asset streams. The research shows a model of agricultural finance that is reliant on grain-storage governance, a constellation of mid-century economic ideas, agro-chemical technologies, and state regulation, and how they are applied to twenty-first century market “problems” in new frontier sites. The research has applications to contemporary global financial inclusion projects that aim to build new agricultural markets and connect small producers to global markets

Putting Chinese natural knowledge to work in an eighteenth-century Swiss canton: the case of Dr Laurent Garcin

Symposium: S048 - Putting Chinese natural knowledge to work in the long eighteenth centuryThis paper takes as a case study the experience of the eighteenth-century Swiss physician, Laurent Garcin (1683-1752), with Chinese medical and pharmacological knowledge. A Neuchâtel bourgeois of Huguenot origin, who studied in Leiden with Hermann Boerhaave, Garcin spent nine years (1720-1729) in South and Southeast Asia as a surgeon in the service of the Dutch East India Company. Upon his return to Neuchâtel in 1739 he became primus inter pares in the small local community of physician-botanists, introducing them to the artificial sexual system of classification. He practiced medicine, incorporating treatments acquired during his travels. taught botany, collected rare plants for major botanical gardens, and contributed to the Journal Helvetique on a range of topics; he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, where two of his papers were read in translation and published in the Philosophical Transactions; one of these concerned the mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana), leading Linnaeus to name the genus Garcinia after Garcin. He was likewise consulted as an expert on the East Indies, exotic flora, and medicines, and contributed to important publications on these topics. During his time with the Dutch East India Company Garcin encountered Chinese medical practitioners whose work he evaluated favourably as being on a par with that of the Brahmin physicians, whom he particularly esteemed. Yet Garcin never went to China, basing his entire experience of Chinese medical practice on what he witnessed in the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia (the ‘East Indies’). This case demonstrates that there were myriad routes to Europeans developing an understanding of Chinese natural knowledge; the Chinese diaspora also afforded a valuable opportunity for comparisons of its knowledge and practice with other non-European bodies of medical and natural (e.g. pharmacological) knowledge.postprin