EH.Net Abstracts in Economic History

                ABSTRACTS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
                     (c) 2001 EH.Net
-----------------------------------------------------------

Name:  Meir Kohn
Email:  mkohn at 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
-------------------------------------------------------
Visit the library of Abstracts in Economic History or submit your abstract
at: http://www.eh.net/AEH