French mercantilism is generally associated with absolutist policy‐making subject to capture by rent‐seeking interests. This article investigates how the Bureau du Commerce, a small state agency in charge of commerce and the supply side, handed out rents and privileges to private...

Economic development is the result of various factors operating in space and time. For some time now, economics has been looking more closely at the role played by institutions as a driving and propelling force behind economic development. More recently, the action carried out by intermediate...

18th-century British merchants Benjamin Lester and John Slade were attracted to the Notre Dame Bay borderland region of northeastern Newfoundland by the abundance and variety of marketable commodities gracing the region. Their commercial rivalry played out within the context of a wider...