ABSTRACT
Beginning in the 1570s, silver initiated significant and continuous trade at the global level. Europeans were middlemen in the silver trade between Spanish America and China. In terms of theory, Dennis O. Flynn explains the arbitrage portion of the West-to-East flow of silver via demand and supply analysis. For a more complete discussion of non-arbitrage world trade in silver, including a graphical depiction of the process. Explanation for the spectacular dominance of silver in the early-modern world economy requires analysis of both the demand and the supply sides of that industry. Little attention has been paid to the Pacific route to China via the Manila Galleons. The arbitrage-dominated phase of the silver trade had ended around the middle of the seventeenth century. Brian Moloughney and Weizhong Xia point out that silver imports were huge during late Ming times, rather than having fallen off; decline in silver imports occurred only later, when the Manchus were consolidating and restoring China's economic stability.
