title: Retail growth and consumer changes in a declining urban economy: Antwerp (1650-1750).
abstract: This article examines the interplay between retail changes and transformations in the material culture of Antwerp, a provincial town in the southern Netherlands. We argue that major changes in the eighteenth-century material culture and retail sector were not significantly linked to preconditions of economic growth and urbanization. The Antwerp 'retail paradox' is that of a shrinking economic horizon running parallel to material culture and retail transformations, usually connected to expanding urban economies and societies. Changing retail and consumer practices explain the growing and prospering retail sector, rather than a growing economy.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Urban History.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Blondé
authors.forename: Ilja
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: van Damme
mesh_terms: D003132:Commerce / Q000191:economics / Q000193:education / Q000266:history; D003258:Consumer Behavior / Q000191:economics; D003906:Developing Countries / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history; D004651:Employment / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history / Q000523:psychology; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D007182:Income / Q000266:history; D009426:Netherlands / Q000208:ethnology; D012922:Social Change / Q000266:history; D012924:Social Conditions / Q000191:economics / Q000266:history; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014504:Urban Health / Q000266:history; D014505:Urban Population / Q000266:history; D014507:Urbanization / Q000266:history