The expansion of trade in pre-industrial Europe led to a transformation of agriculture. It induced specialization to exploit comparative advantage as well as a restructuring of the process of production, with manorial agriculture giving way to an agriculture of family farms. Technological...

In pre-industrial Europe, many of the functions performed today by large corporations and governments were performed by merchant associations of various types - merchant guilds, regulated companies, merchant-controlled cities, and merchant colonies. Merchant association provided their members...

Economic growth in pre-industrial Europe was driven by the expansion of the market. The "market" was a complex commercial structure made up of merchant firms, merchant associations, and organized markets. This paper provides an overview of the pre-industrial commercial structure, of how it...