Though there is a consensus that transport plays a central role in economic development, for the period before the eighteenth century there is a lack of strategic information for assessing the importance of road transport productivity changes in economic development. Transport prices in particular are crucial missing pieces of the puzzle. Sources rarely reveal information that meets the standards of reliable price history. However, it is possible to create a reliable transport price series on the basis of the transport of millstones to ducal mills in Brabant. Assessing the impact of the ‘transport productivity changes’ that can be inferred from this transport price series is a hazardous exercise. Moreover, as Masschaele has observed, land transport prices closely match general agricultural price trends. Land transport was essentially an agricultural service, determined both by cost (especially horse provender) and income effects. Transport price inflation was not demand‐led. However, while transport did not impede urbanization and economic growth, conversely, in sixteenth‐century Brabant—a highly urbanized region that experienced considerable growth in the volume of land transport—no significant land transport productivity gains were achieved.

Een braakliggend stuk prijzengeschiedenisLand transport prices and the economic development of Brabant during the long sixteenth century In this article, the authors present a long-term series of land transport prices and forward some hypotheses about the role and importance of rising transport prices on the sixteenth-century urban economy of Brabant. During this period, land transport prices of bulky commodities rose remarkably primarily as a result of the ever increasing prices of horse fodder. Although historiography emphasises important changes in the organisation of carters and waggoners, as well as technological innovations and infrastructural improvements of sixteenth-century transport, they did not significantly contribute to moderating transport prices. As the provisioning of the urban population depended on the transportation of bulky commodities, e.g. agricultural products, building materials and fuel, transport prices heavily weighted upon the price development of these product categories on the urban markets. However, sixteenth-century transport in Brabant did not impede economic growth, but it did not actively contribute to it either.Er zijn in het economisch-historisch onderzoek én in het actuele economische beleid allicht weinig thema's waarover zoveel eensgezindheid bestaat als over het centrale belang van mobiliteit en transport in processen van economische groei en ontwikkeling. Indirect blijkt dit onder andere uit de aandacht die besteed wordt aan de zogenaamde 'transportrevoluties' in de historiografie over het negentiende-eeuwse moderniseringsproces. Aanvan-

Jørn (2008) Considering the user perspective research into usage and communication of digital information. D-Lib Magazine, 14 (5/6).

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