The Price of Bread

Introduction; Part I. The Regulatory Regime: Protecting the Consumer and Strengthening the State: 1. Bread price regulation in Europe before the 1590s; 2. Free trade in grain?; 3. The Dutch broodzetting: the introduction of a 'new system' of bread price regulation; 4. Administering and enforcing the new bread price regulations; 5. The Dutch 'peculiar institution'; Part II. Industrial Organization: The Producers in a Regulated Industry: 6. Grain: the interaction of international trade and domestic production; 7. The milling sector: a trade harnessed to raison d'état?; 8. The baking enterprise: efficiency versus convenience; 9. The structure of bread prices; Part III. Consumer Welfare and Consumer Choice: 10. Crise de subsistence: did price regulation shelter consumers from food crises?; 11. Choosing what to eat in the early modern era; 12. Bread consumption: a wheat bread revolution?; 13. Measuring the standard of living: a demand-side approach; Part IV. Perspective and Demise: 14. Dutch bread price regulation in international perspective; 15. Bread price regulation renewed and abolished, 1776–1855; Conclusion.