Napoleon's trade ban actually wrecked Europe's economy way more than all his famous battles and wars combined.
March 27, 2026
Original Paper
The Price of Exclusion: Economic Warfare and Market Segmentation under the Continental System
SSRN · 6473529
The Takeaway
By analyzing 20 years of commodity prices, researchers found that the 'Continental System' blockade acted like a massive 123% tax on goods. Surprisingly, the actual state of war (the fighting and troop movements) had almost zero measurable impact on market prices in comparison.
From the abstract
How much does enforced commercial exclusion cost? This paper provides the first systematic quantification of market segmentation under Napoleon's Continental System, one of the most ambitious coordinated attempts at trade-cost escalation. Using a harmonized European commodity price panel spanning seven economies from 1800 to 1820, I apply a triple-difference design that compares imported colonial goods against domestically produced grains across blockaded and non-blockaded economies before