Centre for Maritime Historical Studies
Funded by the ERC

EU Funded Project

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 724544

Research centresCentre for Maritime Historical StudiesResearch ActivitiesAveTransRiskProject Conference 2019

Average-Transaction Costs and Risk Management during the First Globalization (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries)

AveTransRisk

"Sharing risk: General Average, 6th-21st Centuries"
Genoa, Archivio di Stato, 16-18 May 2019

The conference is dedicated to the analysis of the historical evolution of General and Particular Averages. These are mechanism for the redistribution of costs in maritime trade which are still used today to proportionally redistribute amongst all interested parties (ship owner, freighter and cargo owners) the expenses which can befall ships and cargoes from the time of lading until their unloading (due to accidents, jettison, capture and unexpected expenses). Within the project Average-Transaction Costs and Risk Management during the First Globalization (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries) - (ERC Consolidator Grant n. 724544), the conference will present its preliminary results for the medieval and early modern developments in Europe and the Islamic world.

Download the full programme here (also available as text-only in Italian or English)

Download the poster here

Download biographies of the speakers here

16 May 2019

  • 15.30: Coffee Welcome
  • 16.00: Official Welcome
  • 16.20: Guido Laura Giuseppe Felloni, The intellectual heritage of a scholar and mentor
  • 16.45: Maria Fusaro (Exeter) Average-Transaction Costs and Risk Management during the First Globalization (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries)
  • 17.30: Ron Harris (Tel Aviv) General Average and All the Rest: The Law and Economics of Early Modern Maritime Risk Mitigation
  • 18.30: Guided Tour to the Exhibition "Condividere il rischio: La documentazione delle avarie marittime a Genova (sec. XVII-XVIII)"

17 May 2019

  • 9.00-10.30: Sharing Risk
    • Giovanni Ceccarelli (Parma), Risky narratives: framing general average into risk-management strategies
    • Ana Maria Rivera Medina (UNED), The mutualization of maritime risk in the Hispanic world (1400-1550)
    • Marta García Garralón (Exeter-Centro Asociado UNED Madrid), General Average and theHispanic Monarchy in the Early Modern Age (1500-1800)
  • 10.30-11.00: Coffee Break
  • 11.00-12.30: Sharing Legal Spaces and Institutions
    • Gijs Dreijer (Exeter-VUB), Voluntary normativity? The legal development of General Average in the Southern Low Countries (15th-16th centuries)
    • Andrea Addobbati (Pisa), Principles and Rules on General Average: Notes on Legislation and Case-law between Middle and Modern Ages.
    • Jake Dyble (Exeter-Pisa), Foreign Shipping and the Tuscan Authorities (1640-1795)
  • 12.30-14.00: Lunch Break
  • 14.00-15.30: Genoa
    • Antonio Iodice (Exeter-Genoa), General Average in Genoa: Rules and Practices
    • Luisa Piccinno (Genoa), The economic structure of maritime trade calling at the port of Genoa through the analysis of GA data (XVII-XVIII centuries)
    • Andrea Zanini (Genoa), Financing and risk sharing in Genoa’s maritime trade: strategies and practices (18th century)
  • 15.30-16.00: Coffee Break
  • 16.00-17.30: Byzantium and Islam
    • Daphne Penna (Groningen), General Average in Byzantium
    • Hassan Khalilieh (Haifa), Islamic Laws of General Average
    • Nicholas Foster (SOAS, London), Transformation and Takāful: Creating Islamic Insurance
  • 17.30-18.30: General Discussion

18 May 2019

  • 9.00-10.30: Mature systems
    • Maria Fusaro (Exeter), Risk and Profit: Shipping and Trading in the Republic of Venice (12th-17th C.)
    • Walter Panciera (Padova), Adriatic Sea-protests in the 18th Century: Sources and Early Results
    • Lewis Wade (Exeter), ‘In the time of the Ordonnance’: Maritime Averages, Insurance and the State in Post-Colbertian France, 1686-c. 1700
  • 10.30-11.00: Coffee Break
  • 11.00-12.30: Calculations and Finance
    • Sabine Go (VUA), Accounting for Maritime Misfortunes
    • Nadia Matringe (LSE) What calculating means: Negotiating numbers and managing social relations in early modern trade
    • Simon Schaffer (Cambridge) Newtonian calculations
  • 12.30-13.30: Round Table on the present and future of GA moderated by Adrian Leonard: Maria Fusaro, Nick Foster, Jolien Kruit, Francesco Siccardi, Jonathan Spencer
  • 13.30-14.30: Lunch and Closure of the Conference