Introduction

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, at least 180,000 tons of silver and around 4,000 tonnes of gold were extracted from the Americas. How much of Western Europe's economic transformation can be attributed to this windfall? And why also, as David Humor points out, did it affect some countries, more than others? Yau Chen of Erasmus University in Rotterdam is one of the authors of a paper that challenges some of the conventional wisdom about the sudden arrival of precious metals in Europe.