The Economic Crisis in Tunisia in the Early 19th Century

The economic crisis occurred in Tunisia in the early 19th century. It was caused by the change of Tunisian foreign trade. In this paper, I focus on the contrast of Tunisian foreign trade in the late 18th century and the early 19th century, and make clear the mechanism of aggravating economic crisis.The Tunisian foreign trade in the early 19th century has two characteristics: the one is a high dependence on olive oil exports to Marseille and the other is a sharp increase in the amount of total import. It means that a poor olive harvest generates a heavy trade deficit. In addition, the shortage of payments for European products resulted in huge debts to European merchants. The reason behind this economic crisis is that the Tunisian ruling class constantly consumed over their revenue and they also made up for the lack of their funds with profits from olive oil exports. Such a temporizing solution aggravated the Tunisian economic situation, because it ended in a deeper dependence on olive oil exports and consequently arrived in a new and worse economic impasse. Tunisian economy more and more deeply depended on olive oil exports and turn into monoculture economy where one particular product affects strongly their economy. Tunisia fell into economic crisis in this way. In conclusion, the successive cycles of impasse and temporizing solution under overconsumption of Tunisian ruling class, accelerates a dependence on olive exports and intensifies Tunisian economic vulnerability. This is the mechanism of aggravating economic crisis in Tunisia in the early 19th century

Economic policy · Economics · Economy · International economics · Revenue · Islamic Finance and Banking Studies