Remittances of Brazilian gold: mercantile organization and agency problems in mid-eighteenth century

Abstract

Trade links between Portugal and Brazil inevitably created relationships between actors which can be analyzed as agency problems, both in the transatlantic context and in the kingdom itself, which would produce the different solutions analyzed in this article. Those differences reflect mercantile organization and [allow us to] reinterpret the Pombaline legislation aimed at the comissário volante (traders who shuttled across the Atlantic).