EUR.AGRIC:Expansion of Trade and the Transformation of

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                ABSTRACTS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
                     (c) 2001 EH.Net
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Name: Meir Kohn
Email: mkohn@dartmouth.edu
Institution: Dartmouth College, Department of Economics

Co-author: none

Title: The Expansion of Trade and the Transformation of Agriculture
in Pre-Industrial Europe

Internet Address of abstracted work: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~mkohn/00-13.pdf

By mail:
Meir Kohn
Department of Economics
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755

Language: English

Abstract:
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 progress was not itself a driving force,
but rather a consequence of this transformation. Merchants and urban
investors played a central role in the transformation of agriculture.
They purchased land and restructured it into family farms. They
pioneered new forms of land tenure. They were active in developing
new agricultural land. And, it was their efforts in lowering trading
costs that made possible the expansion of trade that was the cause of
it all.

Bibliography: Kohn, Meir. "The Expansion of Trade and the
Transformation of Agriculture in Pre-Industrial Europe." Working
Paper, January 2001. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~mkohn/00-13.PDF

Subject: A
Geographical Area: 4
Country/Region:
Time Period: 3
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